RENOVO SOLUTIONS and Beebe Healthcare have been awarded The AAMI Foundation & Institute for Technology in Healthcare’s Clinical Solution Award.

The AAMI Foundation & Institute for Technology in Healthcare’s Clinical Solution Award honors a healthcare technology professional or group that has applied innovative clinical engineering practices or principles to solve one or more significant clinical patient care problems or challenges facing a patient population, community or group.

The partnership between Beebe Healthcare and RENOVO SOLUTIONS was recognized for their improvement of healthcare delivery by demonstrating a systematic approach to the security management and support of medical devices.

Like many hospitals across the country today, Beebe is faced with the challenge of supporting and securing medical devices and systems from ever growing cybersecurity threats while simultaneously meeting interoperability and clinical needs.

As medical device manufacturers develop new devices and solutions to support clinical and interoperability demands, much of the medical equipment in use today is quickly transforming from standard electromechanical devices into complex software systems that rely on off-the-shelf hardware and software. These designs create complex Integrated Systems that improve workflow and clinical decision-making processes, but at the same time expose the organization to increased risk to attacks on the delivery of service, data loss, corruption and premature device failure.

To address this challenge, in 2014 Beebe partnered with Renovo Solutions for comprehensive HTM services which include the Integrated Systems Management framework. The Integrated Systems Management (ISM) framework creates a focused approach to achieve visibility, control, and compliance of networked and IT-based medical devices and systems. The three-phased project to implement this framework fosters collaboration between the Information Technology, Healthcare Technology Management departments and the clinical staff which use the equipment. At Beebe it has increased the organization’s knowledge about the medical devices, the awareness of organization controls and industry best practices, and helped create formal workflow structures.

Today there is a cross-discipline team consisting of IT security, HTM, and leadership staff that meets regularly to work toward mitigating the remaining vulnerabilities and changing organizational processes so that security is brought to the forefront of operational, capital, and strategic decisions. This partnership has helped promote the advancement of Healthcare Technology Management and is used as a model for other hospitals embarking on the same journey. The last twelve months has given rise to several hospitals adopting the model and initiating implementation projects. Many of which looking at the success of Beebe and the message that change must happen for the profession to adapt and remain agile in this quickly changing environment.

The award was presented at the AAMI Annual Conference & Expo in Long Beach, CA on June 2, 2018.