Clinical Engineering Standards of Practice

Clinical engineering is one of several professional disciplines contributing to safe, effective and economical health care. The role and primary responsibility of a clinical engineering service is management of medical device technology, including adherence to recognized safety, quality, cost and efficiency standards.

The Clinical Engineering Standard of Practice has two goals:

  1. to define the scope and role of clinical engineering services in Canadian health care organizations
  2. to define standards suitable for evaluation in a review process

The original Clinical Engineering Standards of Practice for Canada was published in 1998. It was recognized that for this Standards of Practice document to remain relevant to Canadian Clinical Engineers, including Clinical and Biomedical Engineering Departments, it must undergo periodic reviews and updating. A second edition was published in 2007, with a third edition published in 2014. The work on the 2023 edition began in August of 2021 with the creation of a working committee of industry experts, who met regularly over the next year and a half. A draft copy of the final document was presented to the membership for comment in December 2022. The final review was completed February 2023 and was made available in the CMBES Store on March 2023.

The new 2023 version of the Clinical Engineering Standard of Practice is available free to members and $200 to non-members. It can be ordered through the online store.