Columbia VA Health Care System
BioMed Department named "One of the Best"
WJB Dorn VA Medical Center’s Biomedical Engineering Department staff was recognized as “One of the Best in 2013” by 24x7 Magazine. From left to right: Robert Hijazi, Thomas Terry, Darryl Suchma, Russell Masters, and Jerry Johnson. Team member Lloyd Porter was not present, but the team placed a photo of Porter in the center of the group in his honor. VA Photo: Kevin Lee McIver
The WJB Dorn VA Medical Center’s Biomedical Engineering Department was named “One of the Best of 2013” by 24x7 Magazine in their June issue. The department includes staff members Robert Hijazi, Jerry Johnson, Russell Masters, Lloyd Porter, Darryl Suchma, and Thomas Terry.
The team’s award was the result of excelling in preventative maintenance completion rates, staffing ratios, experience and education of staff, medical equipment inventory values, and staff contributions to enhancing the field of biomedical engineering.
“It is such a great honor that the Dorn Biomedical Engineering Department was listed as one of the Best Biomed departments in 2012 and again in 2013,” said Dr. Robert Hijazi, chief biomedical engineer. “It is also a great recognition to be mentioned in a national magazine that is distributed to all biomedical departments throughout the country.”
This is the second time the department was recognized by 24x7 Magazine.
"After featuring the Dorn VAMC clinical engineering team on the cover story of our April 2013 issue, nominating them for a slot in our annual Best of Biomedical Departments feature was an easy decision,” said John Bethune, editorial director for 24x7 Magazine. “Their innovative use of time management to dramatically improve their preventive maintenance completion rate sets an inspirational benchmark for HTM teams around the nation." Healthcare Technology Management, or HTM, refers to biomedical engineers, IT biomed engineers, radiology and laboratory personnel who work in maintaining healthcare technology.
The story Bethune refers to was titled, “Easy Excellence, The Dorn VAMC Team uses Innovative Approaches to Achieve Excellence.” One of these innovative approaches involves process improvement and Kaizen Philosophy.
“We have implemented our own in-house process improvement projects starting off with a Kaizen event and moving forward to re-analyzing and updating our preventive maintenance program and procedures,” said Hijazi. Kaizen is a method of continuous quality improvement achieved through standardizing processes, increasing efficiency and eliminating waste.
The team maintains Dorn VAMC’s medical equipment inventory which exceeds $60 million and with their 118 combined years of experience, the team is capable of maintaining an impressive preventive maintenance improvement rate of 96 percent for non-life support and 100 percent for life support equipment.
And just as the team excels in their lab environment, they do the same when it comes to maintaining their biomed skills. All are biomed school graduates and have earned a broad range of certifications or degrees. Masters holds a bachelor’s in computer science, Terry is working on his bachelor’s in business administration, and Johnson is a certified biomedical equipment technician—as is Hijazi, who is a certified clinical engineer and a Six Sigma Blackbelt.
Veterans and staff may be surprised to learn biomed is an exciting, high-tech environment that thrives on innovation, a sound team, and helping patients.
“Best of all, we are a great team working toward serving our Veterans with the same purpose—same mission,” said Hijazi.
To read the articles on the Dorn VAMC Biomedical Department team, visit http://www.24x7mag.com/.
For more information about the VAMC and the health care programs and services for Veterans and their families, visit http://www.columbiasc.va.gov/.
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