Biomedical Equipment Technicians

Biomedical equipment technicians or BMETs represent a growing division of people who are technically trained whose main responsibility is the maintaining and repairing equipment that deals with medical imaging such as x-ray, CT scanners, ultrasound, MRI, laser technology and so on. The job path for BMETs appears to be improving as rapidly as newimaging equipment} is being developed.

The demand for BMETs is getting bigger. The increase is due to the expansion in new equipment used for medical imaging and technologies that need BMET knowledge, and, by the necessity for revenue by organizations that have medical imaging equipment. As institutions similar to hospitals examine that downtime on an important piece of imaging equipment affects revenue production, there is demand to add BMETs to hospital staff to ensure that every piece of imaging equipment is kept in working order so that costly service contracts are used as little as they can be. The U.S. Department of Labor and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Imaging (AAMI) think that the number of BMET jobs in the United States will increase 24% to 31% until the year of 2010.

Not that long ago, BMETs were trained in the workplace. But, as medical imaging equipment technology has increased, so has the need for consistent, quality training. Now, most BMETs have got an Associates degree in medical imaging electronics or an engineering-related study. Recently an experiment by the AAMI discovered that 62 percent of all BMETs journeyed on to voluntarily become certified by the International Commission on Accreditation. ICC Certification for BMETs is an academic acknowledgement by the International Certification Commission for Clinical Engineering and Biomedical Technology (ICC) that individuals have shown achievement in theoretical and understanding of the principles of biomedical technology.

The BMET role continues to evolve and, as it changes, the educational requirements have begun to expand as well. The BMET profession has begun to walk the trail of lots of other professions both within and outside of the medical field where more and more schooling is needed to serve in a job and/or excel inside a job category.

BMETs say that those who employ them are starting to make one have bachelors degrees for advancement to a higher level or in a few situations just to become a BMET inside some institutions. While this requirement may constrain the job opportunities for few current BMETs, the good news is that increased schooling requirements bring the opportunity for greater income. Studies have determinedshown|found out} that beginning salaries for BMETs range from $20,000-$30,000. However, senior and supervisory positions can command salaries as good as $80,000. The future appears bright for future salary growth in this field.