Second Annual Symposium
May 18, 2012
Charleston, SC
SCBA Corporate Members
Tour of GE Plant a Success
About 20 SCBA members visited Florence, SC on Wednesday April 4 to take a tour of the
GE MRI manufacturing plant there. Arranged by Todd Hazzard at McLeod Regional, the
tours were conducted in groups of 3 to 10 and lasted about an hour.
For those or you that don;t know, GE manufactures all of its MRIs in Florence. There are currently 4 magnets being produced there, 1.5 Tesla and 3.0 Tesla in both regular and large bore sizes. There were probably about 150
magnets in some phase of construction, wiring, piping or testing. Photos were not allowed, but below is one of the attendees.
Many thanks to GE for allowing this tour and providing some very knowledgeable tour guides.
SCBA changes its name to HTMA-SC
Mar 26, 2012
The SCBA (South Carolina Biomedical Association) members have voted to change the name of
the organization to HTMA-SC (Healthcare Technology Management Association of South Carolina).
This is the first professional association to adopt the new name of the profession which was
selected (recommended) at a meeting of industry leaders last year.
The HTMA-SC feels that the new name will be more accurately reflect the direction of the
profession. The former designation of "Biomedical" seemed to discouraged the participation of
imaging engineers and IT professionals by not representing their names in the title. We hope that
the new name will encourage membership, participation and information exchange among a much
larger group of people than the current name implies. It is critical that we begin sharing knowledge
with other related professions to further the cause of patient safety.
The HTMA-SC hopes that other associations follow suit and consider changing their names to a
similar format. They can then promote this to a wider range of people who have a stake in
medical equipment operation, maintenance and interconnectivity.
Our website will change to www.HTMA-SC.org very shortly. Our logo will be modified also to
reflect this new name and expanded emphasis on bringing together the different people involved
in making the technology of a hospital work.
The Board of the HTMA of SC
SCBA Changes Membership costs and Benefits!
In a Board conference call on March 2, 2012, the Board made some landmark
decisions that should positively affect the SCBA for the future. The Board
decided that SCBA Individual Membership will be free form this point forward.
This is in anticipation of some valuable additions to the website that will only
be available to members.
In another action, the Board decided that all SCBA corporate members will
have the opportunity to construct an email of their choosing which the SCBA
will send via email blast to all members. All corporate members will have
this opportunity once per year. This is seen as a large addition to the benefits
of corporate membership, as the annual cost is only $300.00 per year per
company. It is hoped that the addition of this benefit will result in more
corporate members and offset the free individual membership.
