Dave Hind planned to use his degree in Electronic/Electrical engineering to get a job with Hewlett Packard in Colorado Springs, CO, but a downturn in the industry, and an observation from his wife Jean led him to biomedical engineering. Jeanne was a nurse, and talked to him about how much clinical equipment was used in healthcare.
Dave then attended biomed school, finishing a two-year program in only two quarters, and earned a degree in Biomedical Engineering Technology. He took a "temporary" job in Gillette, and ended up raising his family here, and working at Campbell County Health for 30 years.
In those early years Dave says the hospital's emphasis was on saving money, and remembers that when Quorum Healthcare was brought in to manage the hospital the emphasis changed to offering more services and hiring more physicians, bringing in more revenue.
Under Dave's leadership Campbell County Health implemented the first computerized maintenance management program in 1993, a risk based model still used today. He only recently gave up his position on the Environment of Care Committee, serving since 1993. Dave also helped develop the Safety Coach program for proactively identifying safety issues within the facility.
One of Dave's favorite duties was to serve on the Capital Budget committee, evaluating the purchase of medical equipment for code compliance, function and patient safety. With the exception of Radiology, he has been involved in all major medical equipment and medical equipment systems acquisitions since 1993. He assumed responsibility for the installation of the bedside monitoring systems in ICU, PACU, Outpatient and Emergency Department as well as the ICU telemetry. Dave is currently working with IS to implement an interface of the ICU systems into Meditech.
One of his proudest accomplishments is that the Biomed department never had a major fault from JCAHO or DNV on a survey.
Dave will miss his morning rounds of the clinical areas at 7 am each day, resolving equipment problems and explaining functions to nursing. He would check equipment, sometimes plugging things back in, and collecting equipment needing to be repaired. He is amazed to sometimes see a face that looks familiar, and realize that he has worked with that person's mother, and now their son or daughter.
After Dave retires on April 29, he plans to devote more time to his interests in art, especially photography, hiking, fishing and hunting. One of his favorite academic interests was technical writing, and Dave hopes to do some writing in the future. He also has some good friends that he wants to look up and visit, now that he has the time.