EBME
what the problem is and explain and report it to the manufacturer or the ICT team,” they continued. Another attendee commented that there needs to be
a better working relationship and trust building between clinical engineers and IT teams: “I feel that our role stops at the wall, but we need to have a close relationship with our IT team, so that we can negotiate barriers relating to IT login systems, because this can end up being quite time consuming. If we have close contact, we can work with the networking team and make progress.” Another delegate said: “When somebody has a
problem with a piece of equipment, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a switch cable or the equipment itself, they want to be able to ring you and say ‘I’ve got problem, solve it’… All too often, the equipment user will ring EBME who will say: ‘sorry it’s not our problem, you’ve got to ring IT’. They then ring IT, who will say, ‘we can’t find anything wrong with it’. “Often, IT will make some changes in the network, and
they think it hasn’t had an impact on anything, but it has. Realistically we’ve got to be able to look at it and be able to identify the issue, so we’ve got to have some access.”
Sometimes, all the technical components may appear to be functioning correctly, yet the central monitoring system still fails to display information.
clinical engineer needs to be trained on how to use these manufacturer networks and how to manoeuvre between them, so when there is a problem, they know where to go,” the delegate continued.
Who is responsible? Iain Threlkeld went on to pose the question: “From a clinical engineering perspective, where do you feel that your job role stops? Is it at the wall outlets; is it the network cable? Are we just hardware or do you feel that we should be supporting the back engine of the networking and connectivity?” “For me, I think we stop at the outside point,” one of
the participants answered. “However, having an idea of the networking could help in the case of an emergency [such as anaesthesia monitors not displaying on the central monitor]. If you have an idea of the background in terms of the networking, you’ll be able to troubleshoot exactly
Key aims of the workshop
The Thought Leadership Workshop at EBME Expo is intended to bring professionals together to discuss common themes in a round table format. The first workshop was held at the 2024 Expo and a report on the session can be found in the September 2024 edition of CSJ (
https://tinyurl.com/36xk6c5y). All attendees took away ideas that they could introduce into their departments, and the workshop for 2025 continued this theme. Alongside this, the EMBE Expo Leaders’ Network brings together leaders in the field of EBME to drive professional development and better healthcare technology management. At a meeting held in London, several issues were discussed. Coverage of this meeting can be viewed in the May 2025 edition of CSJ (https://
tinyurl.com/yc5k4aa7). This year, it was decided that a couple of these issues would be taken to the
Thought Leadership Workshop at EBME 2025 to hear how the challenges are being addressed in the workplace. These included the following topics: n Medical equipment connectivity and devices. n Technology’s impact on care delivery.
The aim of the workshop was to feed the discussions back to the EBME Leaders’ Network to give a more rounded view of the challenges that need to be addressed.
66 Health Estate Journal November 2025
Need for training and closer collaboration on IT The attendees also highlighted a need for engineers to not only be biomedically and electrically trained, but to also ‘learn the basics of networking’. “We need to be able to look at the systems and say, ‘is data coming out or not?’, and ‘what do we need to do about it?’ There needs to be more learning from our side,” one attendee commented. They highlighted the high stakes and urgency involved,
when a patient’s life or diagnosis depends on the availability of the equipment. The IT department’s priorities were perceived to be different and delegates suggested that IT may not always understand or appreciate the urgency and impact on the patient, as they do not have the same background as EBME. While training will be vital going forward, it also poses
challenges, as departments are already short staffed – releasing individuals for 4-5 days of training can create added pressure on already over-stretched EBME teams. It was noted that Eastwood Park are now offering
relevant training sessions and one EBME lead reported that they are currently looking to ‘start the journey, for some junior technicians’, in order to tackle this knowledge gap and bring this skill set into their department’s mix. One of the delegates also highlighted the value of a study day that was previously run by IPEM a number of years ago, which focused on clinical engineering and IT working together. They pointed out that this is something that would be very beneficial to run again, as it helped to ‘understand each other’s perspectives’. Rather than training every EBME engineer in IT, it was suggested that Trusts could hire an IT specialist into the EBME department, to operate as the link between the IT department and clinical engineering. They would act as a ‘conduit between the two different skill sets’, possessing a shared vocabulary and understanding. “Trusts that have already done this have written a job description that is different to the normal clinical EBME technician and have employed these people with huge success,” one of the EBME experts reported. Other Trusts have achieved this on a smaller scale,
where they have a trusted member of staff who has acquired some IT knowledge. By working closely with the IT department, they are able to gain the trust of their IT colleagues, allowing them to ‘do more than they otherwise would’. The panelists agreed that this would
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