Role of biomedical engineers in the management of medical devices

Continuous developments in science and technology are increasing the availability of thousands of medical devices – all of which should be of good quality and used appropriately to address global health challenges. It is recognized that medical devices are becoming ever more indispensable in health-care provision and among the key specialists responsible for their design, development, regulation, evaluation and training in their use – are biomedical engineers. In this book, part of the Medical device technical series, WHO presents the different roles the biomedical engineer can have in the life cycle of a medical device, from conception to use. It is important to mention that for this publication, the concept “biomedical engineer” includes medical engineers, clinical engineers and related fields as categorized in different countries across the world and encompasses both university level training as well as that of technicians. Working together with other health-care workers, biomedical engineers are part of the health workforce supporting the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially universal health coverage.