MEDICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING IN EUROPE: THE WAY FORWARD

Niilo Saranummi, VTT Information Technology, Tampere, Finland, Ad-Hoc Committee on Medical and Biological Engineering in Europe

At the European level there have been a number of initiatives and projects aiming to bring the European BME community together (e.g. Erasmus and other trans-European training programs) in the 90's. In late 1999 the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) appointed an Ad-Hoc Committee on Medical and Biological Engineering in Europe. The committee was charged to analyse whether some action in Europe is needed to improve collaboration and co-operation amongst the European MBE community, and if the reply to this is positive, work out a proposal on what organisational structures are required. The committee has met several times and is implementing an Action Plan of two initiatives. One deals with the creation of a "one voice mechanism for European biomedical engineers and the other with the accreditation of BME educational programs in Europe. This paper describes the current status of this work.