How Does Biomedical Engineering Improve Healthcare Quality?

The quality of medical equipment, infrastructure, and training provided to healthcare physicians determines the quality of health treatment. To improve healthcare quality, technical resources and innovative medical technology are required. Allocating the necessary cash to improve healthcare quality is always a difficulty for underdeveloped countries. To bring forth innovation, medical sciences and engineering must be brought together through research.

The application of engineering principles to life sciences is known as biomedical engineering. Biomedical engineers use biology and engineering knowledge to develop innovative medical equipment, software, and gadgets.  

Biomedical engineers create new diagnostic equipment that adhere to safety regulations. They use their understanding of medical science and engineering to create specialized equipment for limb replacements and artificial organs.

What Biomedical Engineers Do?

Biomedical engineers learn human anatomy and biology and train in the technologies necessary for developing medical devices. They develop specialized software for analyzing a patient's body. They create new drugs and sophisticated machinery for treating patients. They work in hospitals and clinics to supervise the maintenance of medical equipment. Medical engineer jobs are dynamic and extend to many domains like bioinformatics, bio instrumentation, bio-nano-engineering, biomechanics, biophotonics, etc.

Importance of Biomedical Engineering in Healthcare

Biomedical engineering plays a major role in the design and development of medical aids for diagnosing patients. Wearable devices are one of the most popular biomedical engineering marvels of the 21st century.  Other applications include the VR tool which makes 3D views of internal organs; robotic surgeons that assist doctors etc. Currently, research is underway to create nanorobots that can enter the bloodstream and deliver essential drugs or tissues.

Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is a specialized field in biomedical engineering. It involves the assembly and reconstruction of damaged tissues or vital organs. A scaffold and biologically-active molecules are combined to maintain or rejuvenate a damaged tissue or organ. The field has evolved to accommodate the growing number of patients for organ transplantation. Nowadays, a 3D-engineered tissue model is created and diagnosed rather than using animal models or existing models. Tissue engineering blends the knowledge of chemistry, medicine, materials science and molecular biology.

Microbubble

Microbubbles are tiny bubbles of size 0.5–10 μm used to deliver drugs to a particular site. The microbubbles used ultrasound technology to move inside the body. Physicians could treat the damaged cells without affecting other tissues using this technology.

Transdermal Patches

With advancements in medical engineering, scientists have created transdermal patches filled with drugs. These patches inject drugs directly into the tissues by adhering to the skin. These patches use hundreds of biodegradable microneedles to deliver drugs into the bloodstream. It is painless and can inject the right dosage for a particular period. As the needle dissolves, the drugs slowly enter the bloodstream.

These are some biomedical engineering applications that have improved the quality of healthcare. With rapid advancements in medical technology, bioengineers have made the treatment of challenging diseases possible. Nowadays, bioengineers use a 3D living tissue model to check the response of tissues.  

Career as a Biomedical Engineer

It is predicted that the career opportunities for biomedical engineering will rise by 7% from 2016 to 2026. Anyone with an engineering background can take medical engineering courses and become a biomedical engineer. As an engineer, you have the opportunity to create an impact in the healthcare industry. Becoming a biomedical engineer is one of the top choices.  

Biomedical Engineering plays a significant role in ideating and innovating to provide better health care. About 45% of recorded deaths in 2020 were due to the inadequacy of healthcare. As per MIT News, Biomedical Engineering is the third revolution in medical research. You can start your research in the Biomedical field with a medical technology course. Over 1400 Biomedical Engineers have to be recruited every year to provide quality patient care. Medical engineering is the only proven solution to enhance health care quality.

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