Clinical engineering services at the VA Medical Center, Los Angeles

A large, modern Medical Center requires clinical engineering services to account for all medical equipment utilized in the treatment of the short-visit clinic patient, as well as the critically ill, who require extensive hospital, surgical or medical health care. The clinics act as multiphasic screening systems, providing simple treatment and referral for more extensive medical treatment. The hospital provides the necessary medical systems to accommodate the extensive daily patient flow. Few of the clinics can provide the facilities or machines to handle the expense of newer diagnostic and therapy requirements. Manpower and funding for maintenance today is concentrated in the fast-growing Radiology, Radiation Therapy/Nuclear Medicine, and Laboratory areas of the Medical Center. These departments require service specialists, and large amounts of dedicated funding to balance and insure reasonable maintenance of the newer, high-technology equipment. Growth of such technology in the hospital must be matched by the growth of service professionals in biomedical engineering departments.