In reply to AL.

Hi Al - Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that the FDA moves at a snails pace and while medical devices need to be safe before being attached to the patient, trying to manage a growing multitude of devices at each hospital by the same means that workstations and laptops are secured makes no sense. Nor does trying to assess and review each device one at a time.

The second part of my article outlines a different approach to securing medical devices, from that which most healthcare leaders have employed to date. Many of the top healthcare systems are now looking into, or implementing a dynamic network-centric approach to securing medical devices using the approach I detailed. Right now, and until such times that manufacturers improve the security of their devices and older ones are retired, the onus is on the delivery organization to come up with ways of securing these systems.

The bottom line is that the FDA needs to improve its game. It needs to publish better requirements for security and safety and keep these updated on a regular basis as threats and risks change. Secondly, it needs to improve its efficiency and testing of new devices so that manufacturers are incentivized to design newer, better and more secure medical devices, and that patients can benefit from them before they die of old age waiting for the FDA.