Biomedical Equipment: Repairing and Maintaining Biomedical Devices
Offered By
About this Course
Maintaining and troubleshooting sophisticated medical instruments is not an easy task. In order to deliver effective care, the technician requires the knowledge of different aspects of biology and engineering. The different devices work in so many different ways and the literature about repair and troubleshooting is often hard to come by. It can be quite frustrating to search for solutions every time the operator encounters a problem. There is added pressure because the availability of medical devices is critical for therapeutic and diagnostic care. The longer a device stays out of operation, the slower the hospital would be able to deliver care to the patients.
This course has been designed by the interdisciplinary collaboration of both TU Delft biomedical engineers as well as the local expertise of the medical technicians of the Nick Simons Institute in Nepal to help new and emerging biomedical engineers/technicians working in low-income hospitals to care for biomedical equipment.
This course provides a compilation of the techniques hospitals use to effectively maintain and troubleshoot the medical devices so that repair time is reduced and the availability and safety of the medical devices is improved. Completing this course adds a complementary skill set to prior competence of the learner to perform maintenance routines and diagnose problems in sophisticated equipment with care. A faster service routine will help smoothen the process flow of the hospital and help extend the care to more patients. On a personal level, the learner can rely on the knowledge gained from this course as ‘the blueprint’ for whenever they have to maintain/troubleshoot any medical device.
Instructors
Jenny Dankelman
Jenny Dankelman obtained her degree in Mathematics, with a specialization in System and Control Engineering at the University of Groningen. Her Ph.D. degree in the dynamics of coronary circulation was obtained at the Man-Machine Systems Group, Delft University of Technology (DUT). She continued her research at the Man-Machine Systems group and in 2001 she became a professor in Minimally Invasive Technology. In 2007 she became head of the Minimally Invasive Surgery and Interventional Techniques (MISIT) group. Between 2010 and 2014 she was head of the Department of Biomechanical Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering (3mE) at TU Delft. In 2013 she became a Medical Delta professor.
At MISIT, Professor Dankelman aims to improve minimally invasive surgery, flexible endoscopy, needle, and endovascular interventions. She is cooperating with surgeons of several university hospitals, e.g. Leiden University Medical Center, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis Delft, Academic Medical Center Amsterdam. She has recently inaugurated a number of projects to develop affordable and high-quality minimally invasive surgical instruments for limited-resource settings.
Arjan Knulst
Arjan is working as a volunteer biomedical engineer for an NGO hospital in Nepal and is involved in research at the Delft University of Technology. His key interest is research on the development and maintenance of medical devices for limited-resource settings. He holds a Ph.D. and MSc in the field of biomedical engineering at the Delft University of Technology.
