COVID-19 has been prevalent by constantly mutating its form and has become the biggest challenge to be solved for human society. Clinical engineers have had the respect as they operate extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as front-line health workers. I’d like to express my sincere appreciation for being able to hold the 5th Forum for Asian Clinical Engineering themed “Development of Information Science and Contribution to Medical Safety of Clinical Engineering in Asia” by having healthcare providers including clinical engineers, researchers, and educators from the Asian nations.

With the development of science and technology such as AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ICT (Information and Communication Technology), the environment of health care and welfare is about to change greatly. Medical devices especially in the field of clinical engineering have drastically advanced and become sophisticated and complicated. As a clinical engineer’s scope of job has expanded, its role has become tremendously important in Asia facing an age of rapid aging.

It’s a critical matter for us to train clinical engineers who can work across borders. The movement of standardization of its international qualification system has started emerging. This April, we opened Jikei University of Health Care Sciences to train students to become clinical engineers. This upcoming forum also commemorates the establishment of the new university. This time, we plan to implement the forum in the form of online and in person. We hope that the forum becomes an opportunity for both active clinical engineers and students for the development and standardization of international clinical engineering qualification and international collaboration to tackle various challenges. We sincerely would like this forum to contribute to the development of clinical engineering and international networking.

Ukifune Kunihiko
Chairperson, the 5th Forum for Asian Clinical Engineering Chancellor, Graduate School of Health Care Sciences, Jikei Institute