Every year in Louisville, Kentucky, hackers and security experts gather for DerbyCon. While a get-together of hackers may sound troubling on its own, what’s truly disturbing is what came out of last year’s conference. Medical cyber crime is on the rise, and there are thousands of critical medical devices which can currently be located online and hacked directly.
Researchers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA, recently developed a small piece of hardware that enables medical devices to securely connect to WiFi networks. Due to its wand-like appearance, the system has been dubbed the magic wand of MedTech.
Unfortunately, there is little that is magical about the device. While it does address the problem the medical technology (MedTech) and healthcare sectors are facing in regards to cybercrime, there is much more that needs to be done to secure medical hardware.
For heavy users of batteries the need to charge them is paramount.
The debate surrounding the rise in mobile medical devices safety continues to grow as technology advances. One concern is that the increased reliance on electronic devices to monitor and treat our health becomes dangerous if those very devices become unsafe or unreliable to use. Here, we explore the security and safety of batteries used in critical medical equipment going forward.
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Inspired Energy standard smart batteries have always delivered outstanding performance due to their high energy lithium ion chemistry, accurate fuel gauging and smart charging technology. As customers continue to demand longer runtimes from their power hungry equipment Inspired Energy now offer thirteen Lithium Ion battery models with the latest 3.35Ah Lithium ion cells.
We would like to share some good news with you… On January 13, Accutronics’ shares were acquired by Ultralife Corporation, the American battery, energy products and communication systems provider.
We can’t believe it’s been 12 months since the launch of our new energy-dense batteries for Hi-tech portable medical equipment at Compamed 2014, and just how successful the CMX Series has been over the past year.
Mini battery for portable medical devices smaller than credit card
A recent presentation of findings at US hacker conference DerbyCon demonstrated that medical cybercrime is on the rise.
Rob Phillips, Managing Director of Accutronics, a leading independent battery design company servicing the medical sector, provides a brief overview of standards and design issues relevant to designing in batteries (and associated battery chargers) for medical devices.
It’s usually impractical for companies other than the largest to employ dedicated battery specialists internally. For many businesses, major battery (and associated charger) designs occur only every several years. Yet battery and the associated charger technology is a complex field that requires investment in continual reskilling in technology, as well as an understanding of multiple standards and legislation. Keeping internal battery specialists on-hand is often uneconomical and also, while Medtech designers generally know medical device standards, in my experience they don’t have the same knowledge of battery or charger standards.
However, whether you engage with a third party battery and charger specialist or not, project managers responsible for specifying the batteries in a medical device (and being able to charge them) will benefit from understanding the basics of the standards involved, and what some of the more common (and expensive) design issues are, so they can be avoided.
