In response to a manifest need to provide a society that gave equal status to representatives of both biomedical and engineering interests, the Biomedical Engineering Society was incorporated in Illinois on February 1, 1968. As stated in the Articles of Incorporation, and modified by approval of the Board of Directors in October, 2006, the purpose of the Society is: "To promote and enhance biomedical engineering knowledge worldwide and its utilization for the health and wellbeing of humankind."

Initially, the membership of the Society consisted of 171 Founding members and 89 Charter members. With the cooperation of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the first Open Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City on April 17, 1968.

The first Annual Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society was held in Houston, November 18-20, 1968, in conjunction with the 21st Annual Conference on Engineering in Medicine and Biology.

The first Annual Fall Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society was held in Blacksburg, Virginia in 1990. Subsequent BMES Fall meetings were held in:
Seattle in 2000
Durham in 2001
Houston in 2002 w/IEEE-EMBS
Nashville in 2003
Philadelphia in 2004
Baltimore in 2005
Chicago in 2006