Francis Hegarty

Francis Hegarty is is a founding member of the Medical Physics and Bioengineering Department in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. Over the course of a thirty year career he has served within this department as a Biomedical Engineering Technician, Chief Technologist and later as Principal Physicist leading the Clinical Engineering group. In this time he has managed teams providing equipment management services and he is familiar with the application of healthcare technology in a broad range of clinical departments. He was instrumental in establishing the department’s management structure and is an advocate for multidisciplinary team working between clinicians and engineers. He led on the implementation of the department’s healthcare technology management systems. Central to this was his development of an innovative medical equipment management database system. He has led a number of multidisciplinary hospital projects where medical equipment was integrated in clinical information systems.

He has contributed to hospital management committees and chaired the hospital’s multidisciplinary medical device vigilance committee. During his career, St James’s Hospital underwent significant redevelopment and as a result Francis gained extensive experience in the design, planning and commissioning of new hospital facilities. Francis has also acted as a consultant in this regard to a number of other hospital projects in Ireland and overseas. At the time of the publication of this book he is the Chief Healthcare Technology Officer for Ireland’s new national children’s hospital project.

Francis studied electrical and electronic engineering at Dublin Institute of Technology and in 1994 complete an MSc in Physical Sciences in Medicine through the faculty of Health Sciences in Trinity College Dublin. His research interests include clinical measurement, clinical informatics, medical optics, assisted living technologies, art in health and healthcare technology management. He has published and presented widely on these topics. In 1998 he led the establishment of a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin and acted as the course co-ordinator until 2005. He lectures on a number of undergraduate and post graduate courses and is a member of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Trinity College Dublin as well as being a Chartered Engineer, a member of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) and an Affiliate of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.