The NPL (National Physical Laboratory) from England put online a guida to power measurement of medical ultrasonic equipment (based on IEC 61161) . It´s very detailed and will surely help people making these kind of measurements.

Link: http://www.npl.co.uk/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.2282

The navigation is a littleweird (each one of : Introduction | Radiation Force Balances | Measurement | Additional Information | Further Reading has various pages)

The second edition of “IEC 60601-2-31 - Medical electrical equipment - Part 2-31: Particular requirements for the basic safety and essential performance of external cardiac pacemakers with internal power source” has been recently published by the IEC> The main chage was the alignment with the new editio of the new standard IEC 60601-1:2005. Some technical comments were maed during the drafting but they were postponed for a future amendment if needed.

A quickie, i haven´t read it yet and won´t in the near future:

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) published a report labelled “The Impact of Calibration Error in Medical Decision Making” where, using as example clinical tests for measurement of calcium levels in blood, an analysis is made of the impact of device calibration in the desicion making, and in general the costs, related to the health care system. One-phrase summary:

..calibration errors in measurements of calcium levels in blood may add between $60 million and $199 million to U.S. health care costs annually..

Read the report release news here.

After buying some other assets (for example, Philips from Brasil acquired VMI, a brazilian manufacturer of dianostic devices), Philips annoounced that it finished acquiring Respironics, a know provider of respiratory therapy equipment.

More info on the Philips and Respironics websites.

News seen at The Biomed blog.

Another safety-related case - in India, an incubator short-cuited, which led to a blast on the related phototherapy unit, killing immediatelly the baby uinder treatment and injuring two others.

More info:

Baby dies in incubator fire

Infant killed in incubator fire in Ahmedabad

Thanks to Mariana for the tip.

A new updated list oh harmonized standards related to the european medical devices directives - MDD - has been published in the official journal and Europa website.

Harmonized standards - Medical devices - Directive 93/42/EEC concerning medical devices isthe link for the full list.

This is the link for the official journal update.

The link to the new version of the directive (i don´t remember if i have put this out before) is: Council Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 concerning medical devices.

These links are all or related to the EUR-Lex website, the site for the european law.

I´ve been trying to post about this website for some time now, but always forget

A great source for electrotherapy info is the Electrotherapy on the Web website. This is and educational resource, as can be seen by this definiton from the homepage:

Electrotherapy on the Web is a site that provides current, non commercial information on various aspects of Electrotherapy. It is not presented as a replacement for current texts but attempts to provide an independent view
of the current state of the art.

They have different sections on Modalities Concepts & Healing (which explains in a lot of detail ultradound, shortware, electrical stimulation , laser, etc. therapies), Publications and Manufacturers along with other topics, but what i think is the most valuable resource is the Electrotherapy News newsletter (which can be subscribed by email). In the newsletter Tim, the site owner, reviews and comments on recent papers on the electrotherapy subjects.

This is the kind of thing i would like to do about the papers i read if a had more time or were not so lazy.

A checklist for the safe and effective use and mantainance of a home healthcare medical device has been published by CDRH from the FDA.

Titled “Home healthcare medical devices - a checklist“, it has some precious tips for users.

Ajit from the Elsmar Cove gave the tip.

Joseph M. Juran, recognized by many as one of the founders of modern quality management, died february 28, 2008, as reported on this link at the American Society for Quality website.

He was a pioneer in the area of quality control (his book Juran´s Quality Control Handbook é a classic, altough i prefer Juran On Quality By Design).

Foun on the Elsmar Cove.