Safety considerations in clinical engineering

Clinical engineering is a professional specialty which emerged in the 1960s primarily in response to concern about the hazard of electrocution in hospitals. It has already developed to encompass a much broader range of topics affecting the safe and effective use of technology in health care. However, safety remains as one major focus of clinical engineering. In this paper, issues arising in relation to electrical safety and treated in considerable detail. The next major safety area of concern involves medical gases. This area is newer and, consequently, the issues are less well resolved and therefore it is treated in less detail. Other safety issues, which are numerous, await review at some time in the future.