Reliability and safety analysis in medical applications of computer technology

Author

Johnson, Bany W. ; Aylor, James H.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Eng. & Appl. Sci., Virginia Univ., Charlottesville, VA, USA

fYear

1988

fDate

8-10 Jun 1988

Firstpage

96

Lastpage

100

Abstract

Analysis approaches that can be used in the design of computer-based systems for medical applications are described. The major contributions are the definition of safety and the development of analysis techniques which allow safety to be quantified. The results presented are of particular importance in medical applications where the inappropriate operation of the computer system can be catastrophic. A microprocessor-based controller developed for an electric wheelchair is described and used as an example to illustrate the basic concepts and modeling techniques. The results demonstrate that reliability considerations alone are insufficient to evaluate the effectiveness of a given design; safety must also be considered to ensure that the best design is selected for a given application

Keywords

computer interfaces; fault tolerant computing; medical computing; reliability; safety; computer technology; computer-based systems; electric wheelchair; medical applications; microprocessor-based controller; reliability; safety analysis; Biomedical equipment; Biomedical imaging; Computer applications; Computer errors; Control systems; Medical control systems; Medical services; Microprocessors; Safety; Wheelchairs;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering of Computer-Based Medical Systems, 1988., Proceedings of the Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Minneapolis, MN

Print_ISBN

0-8186-4863-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ECBS.1988.5453

Filename

5453