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Biomedical Engineering (BME) is considered today as one of the most promising job of the future. Education in BME in Europe during the last decade has been mainly influenced by: The European policy on higher education, research & development (R&D) programs in the field and the market demands. Due to the rapid technological progress in the field there is a strong pressure on education, training and life long learning programs to continuously adapt their objectives in order to face new requirements and challenges.

Quality assurance and accreditation is an essential aspect for the harmonization of BME curricula in Europe. The definition of common criteria per curricula definition and credit transfer might not be effective is the actual implementation and outcome by means of an effective Quality Assessment system. The purpose of the present contribution is to present a review of existing Quality Assessment systems existing in European and partner countries for BME programs, aiming to identify a possible common basis for the definition of a template guidance document and eventual constraints resulting from local legislation that might prevent harmonization.

One of the major objectives of the TEMPUS IV CRH-BME Joint Project is to propose an updated vision of study programs and curricula in the field of biomedical engineering (BME) in Europe. The project emerged as a response to ever increasing and changing demands of the health care sector and industry for education of flexible and competent biomedical engineers on one side and rapidly emerging new technologies and interdisciplinary application domains for BME on the other side. The proposition for curricula reformation and harmonisation presented in this paper is based on identification of five types of BME programs covering 1 st and 2 nd cycle education and on definition of seven core BME topics. The adoption of the proposed structure of generic BME study programs and of the generic BME curriculum will contribute to harmonisation of BME studies and to increased student and teaching staff exchange across Europe, thus promoting the creation of the European Higher Education Area.

Biomedical Engineers should be prepared to adapt to existing or forecasted needs. Today, education in Biomedical Engineering (BME) in Europe is mainly influenced by: a) the European policy on higher education, b) research & development (R&D) programs and c) the market demands. There is a strong pressure on education, training and life long learning programs to continuously adapt their objectives in order to face new requirements and challenges.

Digital Tomosynthesis (DTS) is a method of limited angle reconstruction of tomographic images produced at variable heights, on the basis of a set of angular projections taken in an arc around human anatomy. Reconstructed tomograms from unprocessed original projection images, however, are invariably affected by tomographic noise such as blurred images of objects lying outside the plane of interest and superimposed on the focused image of the fulcrum plane. This work addresses the post-processing method for reconstructing tomograms based on constructing a noise mask from all planes in the reconstructed volume. Subsequently, this noise is subtracted from the in-focus plane. The algorithm was applied in conjunction with Multiple Projection Algorithm (MPA) used to reconstruct planes from the projection images. Comparison between unprocessed and processed tomograms show that the later contribute to less noisy tomosynthesis images, higher CNR and improved feature contrast for both low- and high contrast details.

The development of an equipment inventory of the medical devices installed and used in the Peripheral Healthcare System (PHS) of Crete, Greece is considered to be the cornerstone for the initiation of a process for the evaluation, monitoring and management of biomedical technology in this institution. The medical equipment inventorying process is performed by the Institute of Biomedical Technology, in cooperation with the Biomedical Technology Unit from the Department of Medical Physics of the University of Patras, Greece. The whole procedure is divided and accomplished in three phases: 1) collection of medical equipment data on structured paper sheet forms; 2) data entry in a computerized management system; 3) installation of an in-house developed webbased medical equipment management system, called WEBPRAXIS, used to store and manage the medical equipment. As a result, the procedure leads to the creation of an electronic database, containing essential information for the identification of each medical device such as: equipment control number, device group, type and manufacturer, serial number, department and location, age and acquisition cost. Total number of 4 958 medical devices from 22 healthcare institutions are recorded. Furthermore, the medical equipment is classified in 355 device groups, 2 050 device types and 715 manufacturers. The current project overcomes a number of problems, present in the field of biomedical technology management in the PHS of Crete. The most important are: 1) ineffective practice of keeping local inventory files, due to insufficient information on codification and nomenclature standards; lack of computerized systems and software, and lack of personnel experience; 2) no centralized database for the medical equipment in PHS of Crete, resulting in poor technology management, assessment, planning and decision making. The systematic use of WEB-PRAXIS is expected to improve the management of medical equipment with significant benefits related to cost-efficiency and safety.

Medical device recalls by manufacturers contribute to the safe and qualitative function of the devices, in order that incidents which could lead to injuries and deaths are avoided. The present work aims to analyze the data available from the major medical device vigilance systems concerning recalls due to software problems. For this purpose, records from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the period 1999–2005 are used. The results from data collection and analysis are presented through the use of ratio indicators and their distribution over the time. Furthermore, classification of the recalls by device categories is performed. The results reveal that one in every three medical devices, making use of software for their operation, has been recalled due to failure in the software itself. In percentage ratios, 11.3% of the total FDA recalls are attributable to software failures. Comparison with previous studies demonstrates increased number of software failure recalls. This indicates the growing importance of software in the domain of medical equipment. The present analysis reveals the tendencies and the areas to focus for the achievement of highest level of safety and quality in biomedical technology.