College of Biomedical Equipment Technology

The College of Biomedical Equipment Technology (CBET) was formed to address the growing demand for skilled biomedical equipment technicians.

“Since our founding, demand for skilled technicians has only grown, exacerbated by the effects of the ‘silver tsunami,’ the pandemic and other factors. Additionally, the health care industry is facing a skills gap, driven largely by rapidly advancing technologies and limited access to quality education and training,” said Richard L. “Monty” Gonzales, Ed.D., President, College of Biomedical Equipment Technology (CBET).

“Our success in addressing these issues can be attributed to the relationships of trust we have formed with HTM leaders across the country. By working closely with medical device manufacturers, independent service providers, hospitals and other health care organizations to design our programs, we can ensure students receive training and develop the necessary skills that meet evolving employment needs,” he added. “The most important measure of our success continues to be our ability to educate, train and place students with respected health care organizations across the country and internationally. In 2022, we provided education and training to more than 600 students, the overwhelming majority of whom are working in the healthcare technology management (HTM) industry today.”

TechNation found out more about CBET with a question-and-answer session with Gonzales.

Q: What are some advantages that CBET has over the competition?

Gonzales: One of the main advantages of being a college that offers its programs via interactive distance learning is the flexibility it offers. Online classes can be completed from anywhere with an Internet connection, allowing students to work on their own schedule. This is particularly beneficial for students who have work, family or other obligations that make attending traditional classes difficult. In addition, online courses often offer a wider range of options and can be significantly more affordable than on-campus classes. Flexibility and affordability are too often barriers to meeting applicant needs, and being an online college allows us to bring down those barriers.

CBET is also an accredited college, which means that all our operations, programs, online educational delivery and hybrid offerings are subject to rigorous peer and accreditor review and independently held to the highest benchmarks for completion and placement.

Perhaps the most important advantage we possess is the relationship we have with the health care community. The unique relationship with the industry we serve enables our team to constantly improve the education and training our students receive consistent with real-time and evolving industry needs. Our relationship with industry also enables our career services team to better support graduates seeking employment or advanced career opportunities.

Q: What are some challenges that your company faced last year?

Gonzales: The biggest challenge we face, and a recurring theme in our conversations with our industry colleagues, is related to our goal of maintaining curriculum and programs aligned with industry demands. There are the “steady state” challenges, the day-to-day work of ensuring regulatory compliance and accreditation to maintain standards consistent with Department of Education guidelines. And there are the other challenges, like those driven by accelerated rates of change associated with technology, or simply aligning programs and content with the trends and needs of the health care sector. Our goal – to keep no light between us and those that we serve – has served us well in addressing this challenge.

Q: Can you explain CBET’s core competencies?

Gonzales: The College of Biomedical Equipment Technology (CBET) is an accredited educational institution offering Biomedical, Healthcare Information Systems Management (HISM), Imaging, Cybersecurity, and other technically oriented courses and programs. Our core competencies revolve around the types of education and training we deliver and the instructional team responsible for delivering them.

In addition to our accredited certificate and degree programs, we work directly with health care organizations to design customized education and training to assess and address skills gaps. We don’t believe in “cookie cutter” solutions or a “one-size-fits-all” approach. We have discovered that flexibility and working with health care organizations in an iterative manner to customize high value targeted training is extremely beneficial.

A third unique competency we possess is our ability to develop customized XR training content. Several years ago, we began exploring paths into the XR development arena and made a commitment to establish an organic capability to develop XR content to improve the quality and expand the delivery options of education and training. We believe that the future of HTM education and training is going to be closely linked to this sort of technology and are committed to its full development and adoption.

Q: What offers are you most excited about right now?

Gonzales: The college is thrilled to announce the unveiling of a new degree program, Healthcare Information Systems Management. This program was designed to meet the growing need for health care professionals who possess a unique combination of skills in Medical Device Integration (MDI), Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Healthcare Technology Management. The program will prepare students to manage the complex information systems used in health care organizations, with a particular focus on cybersecurity and medical device integration.

The program concept was conceived from a years-long collaboration with the HTM team at Sodexo, and the development of a Biomedical and Imaging Information Systems (BIIS) training course designed to up-skill their technicians to better address cybersecurity risks in the health care organizations they serve. The collaboration, led by Tyler Chaney and Christopher Faulkner at Sodexo, and John Schmidt, from the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology, has proven an incredibly effective model for conceiving, developing, and delivering relevant and valuable training.

Q: Can you describe your facilities?

Gonzales: The College of Biomedical Equipment Technology (CBET) is in San Antonio, Texas, a few miles away from the Department of Defense Medical Education and Training Campus (METC) and epicenter of the military biomedical training program at Fort Sam Houston. Suffice it to say, the fact that we are in San Antonio is not by accident. As a majority Veteran owned and operated company, there were too many obvious advantages to locating in San Antonio.

Additionally, through a partnership with 626, we have been able to establish a state-of-the-art imaging training facility just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The 15,000-square-foot imaging training center enables us to provide hands-on training for students in the imaging technology program. The center includes classrooms, labs and simulation rooms that allow students to obtain hands-on experience in maintaining, operating, troubleshooting and diagnosing imaging equipment. The imaging training center is staffed by experienced instructors who are experts in imaging technology and are dedicated to providing students with the highest level of training and education.

As a college that provides much of its education and training online to a national student population, we have also invested heavily in a quality learning management system and other software infrastructure to ensure quality interaction between faculty and students, as well as students and their peers, and students and all of the career, academic and other services we provide to ensure their success. Our commitment to the development of XR training content and incorporation of this into curricula is a truly exciting opportunity to expand the value and delivery of online training.

Q: What is on the horizon for the college?

Gonzales: In the near future, CBET plans to expand its offerings in several key areas. One area of focus is expanding accreditation and compliance training by introducing approved Certified Healthcare Operations Professional (CHOP) certification preparation courses. Working in concert with DNV, the college will be offering individual and group sessions designed to better equip technicians and managers with the skill necessary to address health care accreditation and compliance demands.

Another interesting area of expansion is our initiative to develop a new program for dental repair technicians. For the past year we have been working with representatives from Dental Whale, an ISO specializing in dental equipment repair, and Dexis, a leading provider of dental imaging equipment, to design a certificate program addressing the specific needs of the dental industry.

Lastly, we have been working with the widely regarded Al Gresch over the past year to develop a leadership training series. The series, which I hope will present much like the popular Master Class Series you see advertised, is intended to serve as a series of professional development seminars focusing on topics of critical importance that are under-addressed in formal education. Topics like “Lean Concepts and Performance Measures: Instruments to Optimize Performance and Customer Satisfaction” and “CMMS Use and Application: Keys to Demonstrating and Building Your Value” will be included in the series. We are excited to see where these seminars take us next.

For more information, visit cbet.edu.