Tuesday, 3 December 2013
By Mitch on Tuesday, 3 December 2013, 09:41 - Standards
In the last article we've seen the consequences of regulations on Apps, which run on smartphone or - more broadly - on mobile platforms.
Today, let's have a look at the main standard to apply when developing software for medical devices: IEC 62304, and the context in which most people want to apply it: agile methods.
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Friday, 18 October 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 18 October 2013, 13:38 - Templates
A new Software Configuration Management Plan (SCMP) Template, more adapted to agile methods.
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Friday, 11 October 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 11 October 2013, 14:08 - Processes
Your company develops medical web apps (HTML/JS, HTML5 or any other client-side technology) and your customers would like them to run on every web browser.
Web browsers are SOUP, according to IEC 62304. In case of Chrome and Firefox there are dozens of versions...
Does it mean that software has to be tested - and documented - with every single browser and every single version of the browser?
That's a nightmare!
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Friday, 28 June 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 28 June 2013, 14:28 - Standards
This is today the last article of this series about SOUP.
SOUP is a concept that we find elsewhere than in the IEC 62304 standard. Namely in the FDA guidances.
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Friday, 14 June 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 14 June 2013, 13:43 - Standards
After having discussed about open-source software in the last post, we continue today this series about SOUP with the case of standalone software.
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Friday, 7 June 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 7 June 2013, 13:52 - Standards
After having discussed about frameworks and runtimes in the last article, we continue today this series about SOUP with the case of open-source software.
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Friday, 31 May 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 31 May 2013, 15:06 - Standards
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.
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Friday, 24 May 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 24 May 2013, 14:03 - Standards
We've seen in the last article, what is a SOUP and what is not a SOUP, according to IEC 62304.
We've also seen that a lot of 3rd party software are SOUPs, to begin with OS, drivers, runtimes, Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers and frameworks.
How to deal with those to be compliant with IEC 62304?
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Friday, 17 May 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 17 May 2013, 14:21 - Standards
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?
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Friday, 26 April 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 26 April 2013, 14:39 - Standards
Want to see latest news about IEC 62304 2nd Edition?
Have a look at this thread on Elsmar Cove Forum: Update on IEC 62304 revision.
This thread contains an interesting discussion about the topics that are being amended in IEC 62304 by IEC working group:
- Safety classes,
- SOUP,
- Legacy software.
Enjoy.
Note: for those who don't know Elsmar Cove forum, it's probably the best forum about quality management and standards.
EDIT: elsmar cove forums is dead, see RIP elsmar cove.
Friday, 12 April 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 12 April 2013, 20:34 - Standards
In the previous post, we've seen when it's mandatory to be compliant both with IEC 60601-1 and IEC 62304, and when IEC 60601-1 alone is enough.
But some manufacturers don't apply IEC 60601-1, mainly because their devices are not in contact with the patient or cannot be qualified are medical devices. We find in these categories in-vitro diagnosis instruments and laboratory instruments.
These instruments usually fall in the scope of IEC 61010-1. Let's see now the relationship between IEC 61010-1 and IEC 62304.
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Friday, 5 April 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 5 April 2013, 16:50 - Standards
Manufacturers of medical devices often ask themselves the obvious question:
Is it mandatory to be compliant both with IEC 60601-1 and IEC 62304?
Similarly, manufacturers of in vitro diagnosis devices ask themselves:
Are my devices in the scope of IEC 62304?
Obviously, medical devices (MD) with electric or electronic components are in the scope of IEC 60601-1. And in-vitro diagnosis devices (IVD) with electric or electronic components are in the scope of IEC 61010-1.
Do MD and IVD that embed software, fall in the scope of IEC 62304?
This is not so obvious.
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Friday, 8 March 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 8 March 2013, 14:09 - Standards
We've seen in the two previous posts several solutions on how to treat legacy software according to IEC 62304.
But there is nothing equivalent to this discussion in IEC 62304. The standard is silent about these situations.
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Friday, 1 March 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 1 March 2013, 14:31 - Standards
We've seen in the last post how to manage changes in legacy software. Let's see it from another point of view: the type of legacy software.
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Friday, 22 February 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 22 February 2013, 14:09 - Standards
Most of medical devices manufacturers have legacy software that was not designed according to IEC 62304. The devices that embed legacy software were once verified and validated. These devices and their software work well and no major adverse event were raised by software issues.
But one day, the manufacturer decides that it's time to bring that legacy software into line with IEC 62304, to align the technical file of that software (or the contribution of software to technical file content) with up-to-date standard or regulatory requirements.
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Monday, 21 January 2013
By Mitch on Monday, 21 January 2013, 15:34 - Standards
In the last two posts, we've seen what a software unit is, and when to do software detailed design, according to IEC 62304 and FDA Guidances.
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Friday, 18 January 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 18 January 2013, 15:45 - Standards
In my last post, I explained what criteria should be taken to define the level of details of software units in a software design. This activity is not mandatory for all levels of risk of software in medical devices, though, according to IEC 62304.
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Friday, 11 January 2013
By Mitch on Friday, 11 January 2013, 14:08 - Standards
IEC 62304 requires to split architecture of class C (mission critical) software into software items and software units. Software units are software items that can't be split into sub-items, according to the standard. Okay. But how to decide that an item can't be split into sub-items, and is a unit?
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Friday, 9 November 2012
By Mitch on Friday, 9 November 2012, 14:06 - Misc
Endeavour Agile ALM is an Open-Source solution for Agile project and resource management.
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Friday, 2 November 2012
By Mitch on Friday, 2 November 2012, 14:11 - Processes
Following the article about software verification, let's see what software validation is.
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