Software in Medical Devices, by MD101 Consulting

The new version of IEC 62304, also known as IEC 62304:2015 or amendment 1 of IEC 62304 was published by the IEC at the end of June 2015.
There were no major changes compared to the drafts that were circulated earlier this year.

The two major new requirements, compared to IEC 62304:2006 are:

• Requirements about legacy software,
• Changes in the definition of the security classes, based on risk assessment.

IEC 62304:2015 is available on IEC website at the astounding / amazing / appealing / astonishing (delete as appropriate) price of 650 swiss francs (approx. US$700) for the consolidated version.
Enjoy!


Now we need to wait for this version to be harmonized by EU and recognized by the USA.

The DIS2 (2nd draft version) of the next ISO 13485 was released in february.
It is published for comments on BSI draft review system website. Go to this website and search for 13485 to have a look at this draft.

The FDIS (final draft version) of IEC 62366-1 was released in November 2014. This version, also known as IEC 62366 2nd edition, is on the right track to be officially released in Q1 2015. It will supersede the IEC 62366:2007 + Amendment 1:2014.

Thanks to elsmar cove website, we know that the publication of the next version of ISO 13485 is postponed to 2016.
EDIT: elsmar cove forums is dead, see RIP elsmar cove.

Bye bye ISO 13485:2015,
Welcome ISO 13485:2016!

ISO/DIS 13485:2014 is the draft of the next version of ISO 13485. The final version should be published in 2015.
This new version brings a lot of new requirements for management of software related to medical devices. Let's see what's inside this draft!

Further reading to complete this long series about SOUP:
You can have a look at this excellent article about OTS/SOUP validation strategies.

Next week, we'll see Unique Device Identification (UDI) for software.

After having discussed about open-source software in the last post, we continue today this series about SOUP with the case of standalone software.

We saw in the first article of this series, what is a SOUP and what is not a SOUP, according to IEC 62304.
Then we continued in the second article by having a look at OS's and drivers.
Let's now see how to deal with runtimes.

No need to reinvent the wheel when developing software. Everybody uses software made by 3rd parties, to begin with the operating system and general purpose libraries.
IEC 62304 has specific requirements about 3rd party software. What are these requirements and how do they affect software development and maintenance?

The FAQ related to the Implementation of EN 62304 with respect to MDD 93/42/EEC was released by Team NB, the association of Notified Bodies.
You'll find in this FAQ many hot subjects I already mentioned in this blog:

• When software is medical device,
• What is software validation,
• SOUP and legacy software,
• Software risk assessment.

This FAQ shows that the state-of-the-art is still evolving. But I think that it has reached a point of consistency and stability. Many questions in the FAQ hadn't clear answers one or two years back.

Keep going!