Lessons from 342 medical device failures

• Published in: Proceedings 4th IEEE International Symposium on High-Assurance Systems Engineering pp. 123 - 131
• Main Authors: Wallace, D.R., Kuhn, D.R.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1999
• Subjects: Animals; Computer aided manufacturing; Costs; Design engineering; Diseases; Fault detection; Information technology; Medical diagnostic imaging; Medical treatment; Space technology
• ISBN: 0769504183; 9780769504186
• DOI: 10.1109/HASE.1999.809487

Most complex systems today contain software, and systems failures activated by software faults can provide lessons for software development practices and software quality assurance. This paper presents an analysis of software-related failures of medical devices that caused no death or injury but led to recalls by the manufacturers. The analysis categorizes the failures by their symptoms and faults, and discusses methods of preventing and detecting faults in each category. The nature of the faults provides lessons about the value of generally accepted quality practices for prevention and detection methods applied prior to system release. It also provides some insight into the need for formal requirements specification and for improved testing of complex hardware-software systems.