In 2017, the healthcare industry experienced a dramatic surge in cyberattacks. Thousands of healthcare organizations around the world suffered various attacks — from data theft to ransomware attacks. Among them was the notorious WannaCry ransomware attack, which affected over 300,000 machines across 150,000 countries, including the United States. As many as 200,000 Windows systems were impacted by WannaCry, including nearly 50 healthcare facilities in the UK, and dozens more in the United States. The infections from WannaCry impacted medical devices as well, putting hospital staff — and patient safety — at risk.

By utilizing state-of-the-art production equipment and processes, machining tolerances are held extremely close on today's multi-lumen and multilayer medical tubing. It is important to note that any misalignment of the tools may be exaggerated in the final product output. Clean parts, especially with sealing and locating surfaces, are key to product performance and successful end products. These surfaces receive the most care and attention during manufacturing and are the control surfaces that ensure uniformity throughout the tubing. Remember, precision-machined alignments are affected by even a speck of dirt measuring only a few thousandths of an inch. A human hair is about 0.003 in. (0.08 mm), and since there are many such surfaces in a quality tool, cleanliness is critical.

Daniel Barel's initial objective was straightforward. He wanted to make life more comfortable for people who are confined to wheelchairs. Curbs, different surfaces, and the energy required to propel a wheelchair took a tremendous toll on one of Barel's friends, who had tried his own hand at an improvised solution for the discomfort.

Traditionally, small chip antennas used in RF-enabled medical devices have required a designated ground “keep out” area to minimize interference from other components and ensure the ideal radiation pattern for wireless signals. In some cases, this reserved space can eat up as much as 15 × 20 mm of the printed circuit board.

The latest advances in 3D technologies are revolutionizing the ability to measure the human body, and this is having a tremendous impact on the healthcare industry and in the development of healthcare products. For example, Japanese research company Unitika Garments Technology is using optical 3D scanning to measure the human body to research use of dimensional inspection for quality control of textile products. Optical 3D measurement produces data that cannot be gathered using traditional methods.

The global market for minor orthopedic replacement implants exceeded $1.5 billion in 2017. Analysts from The Business Research Company forecast the market value to grow at a rate of over 7 percent and to reach $2.2 billion in 2021 in their report “Minor Orthopedic Replacement Implants.”¹ According to the report, the primary reason for this growth is the high incidence of arthritis and fractures. Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are the major causes for joint replacement surgery, including minor orthopedic joints. The other cause for joint replacement surgery is failed previous joint replacement surgery. This article examines the trends that are driving this market, including a look at materials, regions, procedures, and regulatory developments that are shaping the future of orthopedic implants.

Healthcare is poised for significant change over the coming years as a result of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual assistants, sensors, and wearables. Significant investments have been made in transitioning providers to EMR systems, but the benefits of this digital transformation has not yet been fully realized. Microservices are a new software development technique that provides a number of advantages in architecting back-end solutions while offering particular benefits in developing digital and connected healthcare solutions.

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has focused its drug-development strategies around the use of organic or biologically derived compounds. Among numerous successes are also a multitude of failed drug products due to a variety of factors including solubility, stability, biopersistence, and undesired secondary or “off-target” effects. However, in recent years, advances in the study of the therapeutic effects of inorganic compounds, particularly at the nanoscale level, have opened new and exciting avenues for therapeutic intervention.

CT scanners have far greater accuracy than x-ray technology but place more demands on patients. Getting the high precision, three-dimensional images necessary for accurate diagnosis requires patients to lie still on a table moving through a magnetic field created by a large ring of magnets that rotates around them. Although the fundamentals of these designs are limited by the laws of physics and economics, over the years, medical equipment manufacturers have made great strides in refining system mechanics to maximize patient comfort. They have, for example, reduced the duration of a single rotation from hours to below 500 milliseconds, which has shortened sessions dramatically.

New technologies are coming along every day that are designed to make an engineer's life easier when attempting to fulfill his or her motion control system needs. This article reviews some of the latest advances in motion control and presents an application in which all of these components can be used together.