An Expanding Market —
The OS — A Key Differentiator —
Requirements Overview —
About Dependability —
RTOS Versus GPOS —
RTOS Architectures —
Key RTOS Characteristics —
Connectivity —
User Interface Design —
Data Integrity and Security —
Compliance —
Tools —
Conclusion
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An Expanding Market
It is no secret that the populations of industrialized countries are aging. By 2020, the over-60s in France, for instance, are expected to represent more than 27% of the population — an increase of some three million seniors from 2010. Germany ...
The OS — A Key Differentiator
To gain and sustain market share, remote-care device manufacturers will certainly have to demonstrate to users (patients and healthcare providers), payers (governments, insurance companies, users), and regulatory agencies (FDA ...
Requirements Overview
At the highest level, the requirements for selecting an OS for remote-care medical devices can be separated into business requirements, compliance requirements, and technical requirements. The business requirements driving OS selection ...
About Dependability
Dependability is a combination of two characteristics: availability (how often the system responds to requests in a timely manner), and reliability (how often these responses are correct).
In other words, a dependable OS is ...
RTOS Versus GPOS
If dependability is indeed essential to a system, this system’s OS should be a realtime operating system (RTOS) rather than a general purpose operating system (GPOS). The essential problem with GPOSs is that they offer "best-effort performance". They may ...
RTOS Architectures
Simply stated, an RTOS is required for any embedded system used anywhere except, perhaps, low-end consumer disposables. Not all RTOSs are the same, however, and the wise will examine closely each RTOS under consideration, starting with ...
Key RTOS Characteristics
The operating system’s architecture is of course only one of many design characteristics that must be evaluated when choosing an RTOS. Other important characteristics include the RTOS’s ability to meet realtime commitments by ...
Connectivity
Support for networking protocols should be high on an RTOS capabilities shopping list.
Connectivity is already a key capability of remote-care medical devices, and its importance will only increase as patients, healthcare ...
User Interface Design
Discussions of user interface design, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright dangerous could fill a few miles of shelf space, and is far beyond the scope of this short paper. Even limited to a very specific implementation, such as a blood ...
Data Integrity and Security
The confidentiality of patients’ medical records is a primary concern of physicians, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, the patients themselves, insurers, and governments. The stiff penalties for breaches of privacy and security ...
Compliance
Ensuring that their products comply with standards and legislation in the jurisdictions where they will be marketed and operated is a critical part of any medical device manufacturer’s product plan. Compliance is a necessary condition for getting a device to market, a sine qua non ...
Tools
In the its Embedded System Engineering Survey Data report for 2010,
