Atlantic Canada Clinical Engineering Society
For Clinical Engineering Professionals
Volume 8– September 2009
In this Issue
- Membership – A good time to join - Freebies
- Webinar a success – more to follow!
- Conference 2010 – 15 year anniversary
- NSCC initiative – A new Biomed school for Atlantic Canada?
- Website Photos
Membership
Freebies and a reduced membership rate – Good news for CE professionals! The executive is very pleased to announce that, as an outcome of the annual meeting, the membership rate for a full year with ACCES has dropped to $25. Already a member at the full rate – be sure to remind us and we can extend your membership a year or refund $25. If you are joining the society now your membership will begin immediately and take you through next fiscal year, ending March 31 in 2011.
Also, existing and new members joining now will receive an environmentally friendly tree in a bag (great project for the family – grow your own ACCES Norway Spruce) and an Urbano tool Kit;
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You can join on line at www.acessociety.org. If you have already filled out a membership application form you may also receive this notice – coming to a mailbox near you!
Many thanks go to Jason Symmonds for his work in pulling together the membership package and giveaways. More news to come on ACCES gifts and giveaways.
Attendees at ACCEC 2009
Education Webinars – Continuing education for CE professionals
The feedback from the first webinar has been excellent;
- “I am really excited about the future of this initiative.”
- “The comment made … toward the end about some kind of credit system toward some certification would be an excellent idea also”
- “I wanted to touch base and let you know I though the webinar went really well, I think it is a great idea.”
- “I though it went very well, which is a testament to the effort and skill you (Paul) brought to the project.”
Discussion is already underway regarding a spring 2010 webinar series.
What’s coming up?
Our mission at the Atlantic Canada Clinical Engineering Society (ACCES) is to support clinical engineering professionals working in the Atlantic Provinces and developing educational opportunities is central to that mission. As you know, continuous education and professional development is key to our profession and helps us foster the adoption of new and innovated technologies in healthcare.
The Atlantic Canada Clinical Engineering Society (ACCES) is pleased to offer, as a pilot project, four Webinars. We at ACCES realize that in these current economic times we all have to find ways to be frugal and a webinar is a very low cost method of connecting people and presenting relevant content. The webinar is an internet based technology that allows both the presenter and the audience to be anywhere that has access to the PC and the internet. Therefore, no travel is required, no hotels and it also gives the opportunity for a larger audience to participate.
Each presentation is approximately one hour. There is no cost to CE professionals for these 4 trail webinars.
System requirements to attend webinar:
- Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer, Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or newer (JavaScript and Java enabled)
- Window 2000, XP, 2003 Server or Vista
- Cable modem, DSL or better internet connection
- Minimum of Pentium class 1GHz with 512 MB of RAM (Recommended) (2GB of RAM for Windows Vista)
Participants wishing to connect to audio using VoIP will need a fast internet connection, a microphone and speakers or we would strongly recommended a USB headset.
If you have any question, send me an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Paul Auffrey
ACCES Education Director
Update on Hemodynamic Monitoring Technology presented by Paul Ouellet
Sponsored by Regional Health Authority A & ACCES
Date & Time: October 7, 2009 from 2 to 3 p.m. (Atlantic Time)
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/468589283
When you received the ‘’Thank you for registering’’, don’t forget the option of «add to your outlook calendar».
Hemodynamic monitoring is a corner stone in critical care. Traditionally, hemodynamic monitoring is carried through a pulmonary artery catheter commonly known as Swan Ganz catheter and cardiac output is obtained by thermodilution. This technology, besides being quite invasive, displays mostly snapshots of hemodynamic monitoring. Since the last decade technology has evolved toward a less invasive approach and a real time display of hemodynamic functions.
This presentation will describe two new technologies: transpulmonary thermodilution and arterial waveform contour analysis. An emphasis will be made on a technology that is drawing attention lately, the Vigileo technology from Edwards.
Surgical Smoke: Avoiding the Risks presented by David Wood
Sponsored by Conmed Canada & ACCES
Date & Time: October 28, 2009 from 2 to 3p.m. (Atlantic Time)
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/602700794
When you received the ‘’Thank you for registering’’, don’t forget the option of «add to your outlook calendar».
The purpose of this seminar is to acquaint biomed, nurses and other members of the surgical team with the risks associated with surgical smoke plume. Research has demonstrated that, annually, some 500,000 surgical team members are exposed to airborne contamination from surgical smoke. Frequently, patients are exposed to these same potential contaminants. Learning objectives include:
- Describe the content of surgical smoke plume
- Identify the hazardous components of plume
- Compare surgical smoke to cigarette smoke
- Discuss potential diseases that can occur from plume transmission
- Describe symptoms of plume exposure
- Differentiate the various safety techniques for reducing exposure to plume
- Compare and contrast the various surgical smoke evacuation systems
- Describe the importance of suction tubing size to evacuation rates
- Discuss recommended practices related to surgical smoke plume
Argon Beam Coagulation: Patient Benefits and Safety presented by David Wood
Sponsored by Conmed Canada & ACCES
Date & Time: December 2, 2009 from 2 to 3 p.m. (Atlantic Time)
Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/950328651
When you received the ‘’Thank you for registering’’, don’t forget the option of «add to your outlook calendar».
The purpose of this seminar is to provide biomed, nurses and other healthcare team members information regarding patient care issues during the application of argon beam coagulation. In order to properly apply this technology, a basic knowledge of electricity and its application to patient care procedures is necessary. Combining argon gas and electrosurgical energy to accomplish desired tissue responses require an awareness of specific patient safety considerations. The patient benefits and procedural advantages are presented and the standard safety practices are reviewed. Learning objectives include:
- Explain scientific principles of argon beam coagulation
- Identify the properties of argon gas
- Describe the tissue effects related to argon beam coagulation
- Differentiate the benefits of argon beam coagulation to conventional electrosurgery
- Discuss patient care safety principles
2010 Conference Update
The Fifteenth Annual Atlantic Clinical Engineering Conference will be held in Moncton on April 28, 29 & 30, 2010. We are looking at the same format as the previous years. Wednesday will be oriented toward a full day on one topic with workshops and a few courses. Thursday and Friday scheduled as regular conference content. The exhibition on medical equipment will be held on Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday. The three day event will be at Hotel Delta Beausejour.
Our biggest challenge is coming up with topics relevant to our field and securing someone willing to come here to present at the conference. Therefore, we would like to ask you for some ideas and suggestions on this matter. Also, please let us know, of any new companies that you think might like to participate in the Table Top Exhibit.
If you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time.
Your 2010 Conference Team
Chair person & co-chair- Paul Auffrey & Ron Sturge (education and programs committee)
Entertainment program: Paul-Aimé Bourque
Vendor/ sponsor participation: Stephane Couture with the help of Matthew Stacey
Attendees: Michel Savoie
Adhoc: Jeremy Dann, Dave Melnick
Conference Facilitation – NSAHO Organizational Development
Professional Affairs - NSCC initiative – A new Biomed school for Atlantic Canada?
The Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) is currently studying the idea of adding a Biomedical Engineering Technology Program. In February, Clinical Engineering representatives and industry partners approached the college regarding a biomed program. This initial meeting met with interest and as a result NSCC put together a team of Health Science, Technology and Industry representatives to provide further research on the feasibility of a Biomed Program. In September Dave Hancock and Jeremy Dann from ACCES were invited to meet with the NSCC team along with executive members of TechNova. The NSCC team was well informed and already compiling research on a new program. The next steps include a survey through ACCES of the age, gender, and retirement plans of the Biomeds working in the Maritimes. Also there is a contact list being developed of key stakeholders from the private and public sectors. We came away from the discussion with a real sense of optimism. We are sure you will be hearing more about this exciting news shortly.
Dave Hancock, in his role as Director of professional Affairs for ACCES has taken a lead in this and the executive of ACCES would like to thank him for helping pull this together.
Publications - Website Photos and Forums
We are always looking for more photos to display on the home page in the header animation – your team at work - photo should be in a 1200x400 pixels format. Also, we are in the final steps of setting up a video section on the site for users to publish educational materials and other related items!
If anyone has any suggestions for the site go to the contact section for the site and e-mail Steven Lockyer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.