EMS provider Benchmark Electronics now manufactures Class III medical devices for large tier-one medical OEMs out of its facility in Thailand. The facility was recently audited by FDA.
 
"I am pleased to announce the addition of Class III medical device capabilities in Asia. Given Benchmark's medical heritage, we are excited to achieve this very important milestone in our long-term commitment. With this capability we expand the level and scope of delivering excellent product solutions to medical equipment manufacturers," said Cary T. Fu, Benchmark's CEO. "Our Class III medical device manufacturing in Thailand supplements Benchmark's other recently expanded service offerings worldwide, which includes precision technologies and increased design engineering depth."
 
Benchmark Electronics provides integrated electronics manufacturing, design, and engineering services to OEMs in the medical device industry. —...

AAMI and IEC have approved IEC 80001, an international standard on risk management for networks incorporating medical devices that has been in development for almost four years. The standard outlines how healthcare organizations can manage risk and patient safety in an environment in which an increasing number of medical devices are connected to IT networks.
 
“It can help the healthcare facilities identify risks they may not have been aware of,” says Bill Hintz, senior engineering manager for Medtronic and cochair of the AAMI/IT Information Technology Networks Incorporating Medical Devices committee. Such risks include the loss of critical information and devices not working as intended.
 
A manual on how to comply with the standard should be out by the end of the year. AAMI also plans to offer courses and webinars for...

From our friends at MPMN:


The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with IEEE, is inviting teams currently engaged in microrobotic, microelectronic, or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) research to participate in the NIST Mobile Microrobotics Challenge 2011. The competition will be held as part of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, to be held May 9–13, 2011 in Shanghai.
 

Read more details about the challenge here. One of the events in the challenge is the simulation of a medical microbot working in a human blood...

GE Healthcare and UPMC are collaborating on Omnyx, a completely digital pathology platform that the companies expect to "help transform the 125-year-old practice of pathologists using glass slides." In other words, someday in the near future, pathologists might get to avoid hunching over a microscope to view slides. The slides will be digitized, which enables a speedier and more efficient process for the pathologist and the patient. Research testing of Omnyx is scheduled for three U.S. sites and another in Canada.

The technology was inspired by a discovery two years ago at GE Healthcare's Global Research ...