Developing a strategy for managing the hospital's growing technology.

Successful hospital CEOs, administrators and department heads skilled at their professions, face a major challenge from the onslaught of rapidly developing medical instrumentation technology. To meet this rapidly growing challenge, they must identify their needs, survey their resources, and take positive action now to develop the necessary clinical engineering and equipment control programs to cope cost effectively with the future. This article provides an overview of the fundamental problem for the hospital administrator, suggests a direction toward solution, and provides a primer on the resources available to effectively deal with, if not solve, the enormous problem posed by the ever increasing technology dependence of health care.