Re: Known medical devices with Year 2000 problems, which may not work properly:
- Anesthesia monitors
- Fetal monitors
- MRI machine
- Infusion pumps in intravenous drips
- Heart defibrillators
- Pacemakers
- Intensive care monitors
- CT scans
- Dialysis, chemotherapy and radiation equipment
- Laboratory, radiology and other diagnostic systems
Oh my gosh, you guys/gals are hyping up this Y2K subject to death. I have worked in the design of more than half of those medical intruments that you listed above and I can tell you with 100% certainty that there is absolutly no problem with the date, and none of those devices use any date info to perform the life saving functions. The only use of the date is in the event logging. Typically, those devices has some non-volatile memory (the data is saved even when the power is down) and a printer to print out the log. When a procedure is administered to the patient, the event is logged in non-volatile memory with the time and date, so that the doctor can take a look at it and lawsuit can be prevented. If after year 2000, the devices save the event date as 01/20/01 for instance, everyone knows that it's January 20th, 2001. It's just a matter of record keeping.
I repeat again. There is no life saving critical function that depends on the date. For instance, a pacemaker will look at the heart beat, and depending on the (abnormal) rhythm of the heart, it may administer a small electrical pulse to the heart to regulate its rhythm. The timing of the pacemaker pulse is based on the time it sees the bad rhythm, not the time and date of the year !!!!!!!! for God sake.
I can go on and on with the other medical devices, MRI, defibrillators, CT scan, etc. but I think you get my point.
Another factor to consider is those devices only have non-volatile memory to save the date for event logging in the last 10 years. Prior to that time, non-volatile memory didn't exist or was very expensive or was limited in storage capacity. So most likely, because those medical devices with non-volatile memory were designed in the last 10 years, most likely they are designed properly to log the event after year 2000.
I think it's time for me to launch a series of posts again to counter these misleading hypes.
CK Houston, could you please do us a favor. If you're going to do research, can you look through the article you find to see if it makes sense before posting. It's not because some experts so and so saying so and so that it has to be true. Very often, those so-called experts have their own agenda. If you read the Internet hype of late 1995, you have seen also so many experts predicting the death of the PC, network PC will be in vogue, Java will dominate the programming language, Microsoft will be dead, Netscape will be King, and so on and so on, and nothing turns TRUE. So will this Y2K HYPE .
A few hundred years ago, every scientist, astronomer in the world also said that the Earth is flat. So is that correct?
Let's me gather my thought and I will offer my own opinion, complete with logical reasoning, and without reference to a long list of articles from so and so experts.
Just venting,
Mike. |
