MDevSPICE - A Comprehensive Solution for Manufacturers and Assessors of Safety-Critical Medical Device Software

Software development is frequently challenged with quality concerns. One of the primary reasons for such issues is the very nature of the software development process. First, it can be difficult to accurately and completely identify the requirements for a software development product. Also, the implementation on various platforms and the need to integrate with sometimes unforeseeable additional systems adds complexity. For safety critical domains, such as the medical device and healthcare sectors, these hurdles are amplified. Whereas a failure in a desktop application may be resolved through a restart with no harm incurred, a failure in a medical device can have life threatening consequences. Our work in the Regulated Software Research Centre (RSRC) aims to support medical device producers in the production of safer medical device software. In this paper, we describe the MDevSPICE framework and how it addresses the safety concerns faced by medical device producers.