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ACCE 2012 Challenge Award

​This award honors an individual who is not presently an ACCE member, but eligible for membership, for their achievements within the field of clinical engineering (CE) / health technology management (HTM)


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Tim Gee/Sherman Eagles

​One Award winner is Tim Gee, Principal of Medical Connectivity Consulting and a Principal Consultant with Santa Rosa Consulting, in Portland, Oregon. Tim was selected in acknowledgement and respect for his ongoing leadership and facilitation of annual Medical Device Connectivity Conferences and Blog on Connectivity issues http://medicalconnectivity.com.

Tim has more than 25 years of experience working with providers and manufacturers on workflow automation through the integration of medical devices with information systems and enabling technologies. Tim started in health care in the mid 1980s, with software startup Trinity Computing Systems. Trinity was a pioneer in medical device connectivity and applications developed on networked PCs – starting with the Apple II and then the IBM PC. Over the years Tim has worked for a variety of health care IT and medical device companies, mostly in medical device connectivity. In 2004 he started Medical Connectivity Consulting, and this blog. Since then, he's completed many projects, large and small, for both manufacturers and provider organizations.
 
Also selected is Sherman Eagles, Partner at SoftwareCPR and a Principal at 80001 Experts, of St. Paul, Minnesota. Acknowledging his leading the development of both the AAMI Medical Device Data System-MDDS/Quality Systems recommended practice and IEC 80001-1, for risk management of IT networks that incorporate medical devices.
 
Sherman was a Technical Fellow at Medtronic before his retirement in 2008. He has over 40 years of software (SW) experience, including development work on operating systems, communications systems, SW development tools and SW development processes. In 18 years at Medtronic, he focused on SW process, safety and reliability in medical devices.
 
Sherman received a Bachelor's degree in physics from Macalester College in 1968. He is now a Partner at SoftwareCPR, a consulting group specializing in regulated medical software, and a Principal in 80001Experts, a group formed to help hospitals implement the IEC 80001-1 standard on risk management of medical IT networks.

ACCE 2012 Tom O'Dea Advocacy Award

​There were also two Advocacy Award selections


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Tom Nicoud, MS, CCE/Bridget Moorman, MS, CCE

​First is Tom Nicoud, MS, CCE, an accomplished clinical engineer (CE) that pioneered bringing other CEs into the professional equipment planning field, now living in Tempe, Arizona.

Tom has a BS Electrical Engineering, and an MS Electrical/Biomedical Engineering (BME), Marquette University, 1967 and 1969, respectively. After serving in several CE roles with increasing responsibility from 1969-1981, Tom then joined Ellerbe Becket in Minneapolis rising to VP and Senior Planner until 1995.
 
Since then, he has served in other planning consultant and CE roles, with many presentations, publications, and program leadership with a wide variety of healthcare stakeholders. He worked with a wide range of adult and children's hospitals' design/replacement projects, that were government and private, US and global, including several major teaching hospitals, the Veterans Administration, and Mayo Clinic, to name a few.
 
Bridget MoormanThe other Award winner is Bridget Moorman, MS, CCE, President of BMoorman Consulting, LLC, for her ground-breaking work in interoperability and strategic technology planning, especially in the interface between CE and IT, more recently mHealth, and her many presentations in the wider healthcare community on these topics; see www.bmoorman.com.
 
Bridget has 21 years experience in the CE field to include working at Kaiser Permanente doing HTM for cardiovascular services, patient monitoring, OB/GYN, and medical device interfaces to KP's EMR, and at University Medical Center in Tucson, AZ. In addition to her CE experience, she has done bio-mechanical research, power-line relay/metering design, and space system acquisition-launch-ground systems telecommunications work.
 
Bridget has a BS ME from Arizona State University, and an MS in BME from Hartford Graduate Center/Renssalaer Tech. She is a Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve, currently serving as a mobilization assistant to the MILSATCOM Directorate; her previous assignments have included political-military support to USAFE and EUCOM, squadron command for an aerial port, defense acquisition in support of medical informatics, aerospace systems, and acquisition reform. She is Chair of the US Board of Examiners for Certification in Clinical Engineering, and an ACCE and IEEE-EMBS member.

ACCE/HTF 2012 Marv Shepherd Patient Safety Award


Alan Lipschultz, CCE, PE, CSP

Alan Lipschultz, CCE, PE, CSP

​The Award winner is member Alan Lipschultz, CCE, PE, CSP, President of HealthCare Technology Consulting LLC, Wilmington, DE, for his nearly 40 years of leadership in many aspects of safety – directing advocacy efforts, and serving on key standards committees.

Alan has a BSEE, University of Maryland, and MS, Washington University in St. Louis, in 1971 and 1973. Alan is a Certified Safety Professional (1988). He has had many safety related roles over his career: as CE director at Waterbury Hospital, CT (1973-1989) and Christiana Care Health System, DE (1989-2011); as Chair, NFPA-99 Technical Committee on Medical Equipment (since 2007); as Co-Chair, AAMI Standards Board (since 1993) and their Electrical Safety, Infusion Device, and Medical Device Alarm Committees. He is also a member of American Society of Professionals in Patient Safety, part of the NPS Foundation.
 
Alan believes CEs have a major role promoting patient safety, as they understand both the technology and its context. His career reflects his belief, that when properly written, standards reduce variability and set minimum requirements, two factors that can improve patient safety.

ACCE 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award


David A. Simmons, ScD, PE, CCE, CQE, FACCE

David A. Simmons, ScD, PE, CCE, CQE, FACCE

​A Lifetime Achievement Award winner is David A. Simmons, ScD, PE, CCE, CQE, FACCE for his over 50 years of development and implementation of CE programs in approximately 200 both government and private hospitals and device service companies.
David possesses academic degrees in EE, Industrial Technology and an ScD in Engineering Management. From 1958 until 1972 David was a management consultant and also worked on device service problems at four Boston area hospitals, including Massachusetts General.

David was the first Chief, Biomedical Engineering Branch of the Veterans Administration (VA), Washington, DC, in 1972 where he developed the CE program for the VA's 168 hospitals. In 1976 he became the first CE Chief for the Indian Health Service, US Public Health Service. He previously served as Director of Engineering and CE at St. Vincent Hospital, Worchester, MA. He founded and served as President-CEO of (1) Technical Dynamics, Inc. (1979) as a CE shared service of the Fairfax Hospital Association (now INOVA) where he also served at the same time as Director, CE for the Association's hospitals; and (2) Mid Atlantic CE, Inc. (1986) for Voluntary Hospitals of America.
 
David was also Chief, Biomedical Engineering (CE) at the VA Medical Center, Richmond VA (1990-1992), and then CE Chief at the Washington, DC VA Medical Center. He was also on a VA National Task Force developing processes and standards for JCAHO Environment of Care Standards. Dr. Simmons was selected as the Department of VA CE of the Year and the overall VA Engineer of the Year for 1995 and one of the Top Ten Federal Engineers of the Year for 1995.
 
He founded and served as President, Health Care Engineering, Inc., Glen Allen, VA, an international consulting organization, specializing in CE management, health care quality management, management engineering and ISO 9000 in Health Care (1977-2001). He created the first international QMS Standard for Health Care, IWA-1, based on ISO 9001:2000. He has written many books, manuals, courses and texts as well as providing educational programs, seminars and consultation to engineering, quality and health care professionals and institutions. He has authored many texts and references in the fields of health care quality, planning, CE, and both health care (HC) and industrial quality management. Among his many publications:
  • Medical and Hospital Control Systems, published Little, Brown Co. Practical Quality Control, published Addison-Wesley
  • Clinical Engineering Manual; Hospital Engineering Manual; Hospital Safety Manual; BMET Handbook
  • CE Information Service, a newsletter published bi-monthly (1976 to 1996), published by Scientific Enterprises
  • 2 chapters; Medical Device, Standards, Regulations and the Law and HC Quality and ISO 9001:2000 for the CE Handbook
  • He served on a JCAHO (now TJC) Expert Panel dealing with the reduction of medication errors

Dr. Simmons served on the faculties of Northeastern University, Boston in the 1960s and GWU, Washington, DC in the 1970s. He was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in 1969. He founded the ASQC Biomedical Division in 1970. In 1981 he was elected a Fellow of the ASHE/AHA where he also served as the first Chairman of the Health Care Engineering Division. He served as Chair of the Health Care Division, ASQ (1998-1999). He is a founding and charter member of ACCE and a Fellow. In the early 2000s, Dr Simmons was a consultant for The Joint Commission (TJC); assisting hospitals in preparation for TJC surveys with emphasis on the Environment of Care Standard.

ACCE 2012 Professional Achievement in Management Award/Managerial Excellence Award


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Kurt Finke, CCE

​The Award winner is Kurt Finke, CCE, Director of the Office of Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Since May 2011 – his first year in the national director role - he sponsored a program to support CE certification; 43 VA CEs took the CCE exam with a high percentage passing on first attempt.

His team oversees HTM for VA, covering 152 hospitals and hundreds of other facilities. Within the system are eight million enrolled veterans, more than $5.5 billion worth of medical devices- nearly $1 billion of which was added in recent years. The system employs over 1,000 HTM professionals that include CEs, BMETs, planners, medical IT and application specialists.
Kurt made "Promoting Professionalism and Profession" one of his organization's priority initiatives. Along with technical training and continuing education, he has actively promoted attainment of professional certification. The VA now has over 55 CCEs; Kurt is also promoting CBET / CRES / CLES certification, as well as Program/Project Management, LEAN, and others to enhance the VA workforce capabilities and extend the contributions of HTM to veterans' care.
Kurt has a BSE BME from Tulane University. He has been with the VA for 27 years, managing CE programs at several hospitals and regional offices. He consistently champions adoption of innovative technologies and the design of new HTM processes.

ACCE 2012 Professional Achievement in Technology Award/Professional Development Award


Jonathan A. Gaev, MSE, CCE, HEM, PMP

Jonathan A. Gaev, MSE, CCE, HEM, PMP

​The Award winner is Jonathan A. Gaev, MSE, CCE, HEM, PMP, ECRI Institute, for his leadership in developing CE benchmarking tools. At ECRI, Jonathan has responsibility for developing tools for CE managers to compare their support data with other healthcare facilities.

 
Jonathan has two BS degrees from Drexel University and two MS degrees from University of Pennsylvania, in BME and Systems. Prior to joining ECRI in 1993, he worked for GE for six years, and then two years as a CE Manager at the Hospital for the University of Pennsylvania.

ECRI Institute's BiomedicalBenchmark™ - launched in 2008 - has created a maintenance database that provides model-specific data on average PM/repair times. parts' costs, and failure rates. He conceptualized, launched, and continues to improve the product. He confronted data capture challenges by working with CMMS vendors, and obtaining data for multiple facilities from ISOs. He also designed surveys with demographic data for comparisons of CE personnel with facility bed size, and number of devices maintained for comparing activities across the full range of typical HTM. Jonathan has encouraged the CE community to recognize and implement benchmarking rather than waiting for it to be imposed from outside. He has regularly presented at AAMI conferences and regional biomedical societies, as well as authoring several articles such as:
  • BIT cover story: Developing Benchmarks for CE Activities: A Methodology, (July/August 2007)
  • TechNation: Perspectives from ECRI Institute: Safely Changing Inspection Intervals (June 2011); Benchmarking Service Contracts: Safe and Effective Ways to Save (June 2010); and Stop Over-Inspecting Equipment (June 2011)
  • ACCE News, Volume 21, Issue 1 (January/February 2011) re stopping over-inspections
  • ASHE's Health Facilities Management: Successful Measures (February 2010)

ACCE 2012 Student Paper Competition


Elena Simoncini, University of Connecticut

Elena Simoncini, University of Connecticut

Winner: Elena Simoncini, University of Connecticut

Combating Hospital Noise and False Alarms through Clinical Engineering and Nursing Collaboration

Presented at the October 2011 national Medical Alarms Summit

ACCE 2012 Student Paper Competition


Christopher Colvin, University of Toronto

Christopher Colvin, University of Toronto

ACCE 2012 Student Paper Competition


Helen Cheong, University of Connecticut

Helen Cheong, University of Connecticut

3rd place (tie): Helen Cheong, University of Connecticut

Failure Mode Effects Analysis of EMR Integration of Fetal Monitoring

ACCE 2012 Student Paper Competition


Jonathan Riscica, University of Connecticut

Jonathan Riscica, University of Connecticut

3rd place (tie): Jonathan Riscica, University of Connecticut

Root Cause Analysis of a GI Clinic Procedure at UMass Memorial Medical Center

ACCE 2012 Antonio Hernandez International Clinical Engineering Award

​The award will be presented to one deserving international engineer who has advanced health technology management in their country to improve quality, service, and affordability. The individual would typically be recognized by their country's health leaders or global organizations through leadership roles in their country's national and or activities in the region


William Gentles, PE, CCE, PhD

William Gentles, PE, CCE, PhD

​The Award winner is William (Bill) Gentles, PE, CCE, PhD, for his leadership as administrator of the global HTM / Clinical Engineering email listserv, Infratech. Bill first became interested in international work in 1984 when he was invited to lecture in Taiwan and China. Since then he has lectured or participated in workshops in Malaysia, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua Kosovo and Ghana.

Bill received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1974. He is currently vice president of BT Medical Technology Consulting www.btmtc.com.
 
He is the former CE Director at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, serving there from 1972 - 2001. Since leaving Sunnybrook, Bill has been working as a freelance consultant in the CE field. His consulting work relates primarily to equipment planning for hospitals, policy development and incident investigations in which devices are involved. He has provided expert advice on numerous occasions to investigating coroners in Ontario when a death occurs in which medical equipment is involved.
 
In collaboration with Dr. Tony Easty of The University Health Network in Toronto, Bill co-authored the Standard of Practice for CE in Canada. In 2004 he authored two chapters in the Clinical Engineering Handbook, J. Dyro, Editor; chapters are entitled CE in Canada and CE Standards of Practice for Canada.
 
Bill is President of the Clinical Engineering Society of Ontario and a past President of the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society (CMBES). He is a member of ACCE and a member of the board of Examiners for CE Certification in Canada. He is chair of the International Outreach committee of CMBES.

ACCE / HTF 2012 International ACEW Award

​An Award created given to the organization demonstrating significant improvements in national HTM structure and outcomes since ACCE and its partners conducted Advanced Clinical Engineering Workshops (ACEWs) in their countries


University of Cape Town

Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) graduate program at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

​The winner is the Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) graduate program at the University of Cape Town (UCT) www.htm.uct.ac.za led by Mladen Poluta, Republic of South Africa (RSA). Mladen has been a key faculty member of ACEWs in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2006, among his and his academic program's many contributions to improved HTM in the African region and globally.

After working in industry and in an academic hospital setting, Mladen joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UCT in 1987 as head of Medical Electronics. The HTM program was established in 1999 and has as its major capacity-building activity the Postgraduate Diploma in HTM which has drawn students from many countries in the African region and beyond. There is an active collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Global Health Technology Innovation at Northwestern University, Chicago, focusing on healthcare technology innovation for resource-poor environments. Mladen is also now affiliated with the University of Pretoria (RSA) and part of a team establishing - within its Graduate School of Technology Management - a comprehensive program addressing the Assessment, Innovation and Management of Healthcare Infrastructure and Technology.
 
Mladen has served on the councils of a number of international, regional and national organizations and a number of advisory committees, notably for the RSA Department of Health and the Engineering Council of South Africa. He has also served as Chair of the Working Group for Developing Countries of the IFMBE, board member of the IFMBE's CE Division, and a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO). He is a board member of the World Health Imaging Alliance and a member of the consultative group for the WHO project on Priority Medical Devices. He chaired the session: The Role of Medical Devices to Improve Health Service Delivery: Meeting the Needs, at WHO's First Global Forum on Medical Devices in Bangkok in September 2010.
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