Pragmatic systems engineering in medical technology: 4 transformative developments
Medical technology started introducing systems engineering quite late. This enables a pragmatic approach.
Recalls for medical devices - a quality problem
When it comes to functional safety systems, quality is critical: not only are high investments at stake, but also danger to life and limb. Furthermore, such an incident can jeopardize the existence of a company. Increasing complexity in systems leads to increasing quality problems. To name just one example: The number of recalls of...
How corona will change systems engineering
Even if this blog has a technical focus, it is currently practically impossible to ignore Covid-19 - the coronavirus. It is also clear that coronavirus will keep us busy for years to come. This in turn means that it will have a lasting impact on our society. Socially, this is already foreseeable. But how will it affect...
Forcing open interfaces? Two examples
The Federal Ministry of Health (BGM) has called for open interfaces in medicine - both for software and hardware, such as pacemakers. This is not the first time that openness has been demanded by decree. Another example is the European Train Control System (ETCS), which enables the cross-border movement of high-speed trains. The advantages and disadvantages of...
How systems thinking has almost halved the death rate in surgery
Atul Gawande (pictured) is an American surgeon who posed the following question: To provide the best healthcare, do we need the most expensive experts, drugs, procedures, equipment, and so on? Using systems thinking, he came to the answer: No! Because the most expensive individual parts do not guarantee that the result is the best. What if we had a car...
