Software in Medical Devices, by MD101 Consulting

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Friday, 12 January 2018

Consequences of the 21st Century Cures Act - State of Play

Since the last blog post on US FDA guidance on software classification, things evolved quickly with the FDA. We know where they want to go with software as medical device, but not exactly how they will implement it.
Let's do a review of what has been done since the publication of the 21st Century Cures Act.

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Friday, 20 March 2015

When the FDA releases guidances in burst mode

If you watch from time to time the new guidances released by the FDA, you probably noticed that two guidances about software were released in january and february 2015.

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Friday, 6 April 2012

Inflation of software medical devices - part 3

This article is the last of three articles which deal with the concept of "inflation" of medical devices. The first one was on inflation of standards, the second about inflation of regulations. This one, the most interesting to my eyes, is about multiplication of apps on mobile devices, especially smartphones and tablets.
More that 6000 apps are classified in the "heath", "heathcare" or "medical" categories of the Apple or Android appstores. Many of these apps are classified as medical devices and are in the scope of regulations like FDA and CE Mark. Note that some apps may be regulated the FDA but not the CE Mark or vice-versa.

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Monday, 28 November 2011

New Device Classification Guidance published by GHTF: consequences for medical imaging software

The GHTF (Global Harmonization Task Force) issued a draft of a new guidance on medical device classification They recommend to implement four classes for medical devices based on intended use: from class A (lowest risk) to class D (highest risk). And they give a set of rules on how to choose the classification of the devices.

Comparison with regulations

Wait, I've already seen this elsewhere. Classification of devices in Europe (CE mark) and in Canada have systems very similar to what GHTF recommends. This is a good thing to have an ongoing harmonization process. National regulations copy what GHTF recommends and GHTF copies what national regulations require. This is a virtuous circle. Maybe one day the FDA will implement this classification system.

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Friday, 4 November 2011

How to classify and CE mark software

Medical devices shall have CE mark before being sold in the EU. The process to have CE mark can be summarized this way:

  1. Determining the class of the device,
  2. Choosing the CE procedure to apply,
  3. Declaring CE conformity of the device.

Software follows exactly the same process as other devices. Here are the steps to follow to CE mark software.

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