HEALTHCARE Engineering Alliance Society

Healthcare industry needs engineers from almost all engineering disciplines. However, most engineering curricula, except those of Biomedical or Bioengineering, cover almost no healthcare. Based on the result of a survey among academic and industrial leaders in healthcare, the following is a proposed list of topics for “Introduction to Engineering for Healthcare” or “Introduction to Healthcare Engineering”, a junior/senior level, 3 credit hour course (3 hours per week, 14 weeks) aiming to prepare undergraduate engineering students, particularly those in non-biomedical majors such as Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Industrial, Information, Materials, Mechanical, Software, and Systems Engineering, for entry level engineering jobs in healthcare industry.

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Challenges associated with teaching such a course include (a) lack of an appropriate textbook, (b) teaching students who have never taken any college-level biology course (except those in Biomedical or Bioengineering), and (c) need of constantly updating course materials to keep up with new technologies.

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Feel free to make suggestions concerning this list, and propose new lists for similar courses in individual engineering disciplines, e.g., “Introduction to Chemical Engineering for Healthcare”, “Introduction to Mechanical Engineering for Healthcare”, etc.