QNX medical

You may not have heard of QNX Software Systems, but you’ve probably heard of their parent company: Blackberry. The subsidiary is very active in the automotive telematics industry, but they also produce software for medical applications. The company recently announced that they have created a new operating system (OS) specifically for medical devices.

QNX OS for Medical 1.1 is important because it has been built to comply with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 62304 medical device standard. This is significant because the same standard is accepted in both the United States and the European Union. The fact that the OS has been certified for IEC 62304 saves medical device manufacturers a lot of time and money, because they do not have to recertify that part of their product design. QNZ has done the hazard and risk analysis, and has security features built into the OS. The system also supports graphic displays, touch screen input, and video capture.

QNX also understands the problems of mobile computing technology, so the company is in a good position to support a wide variety of medical monitoring and diagnostic devices.