Reliability and safety analysis in medical applications of computer technology

Analysis approaches that can be used in the design of computer-based systems for medical applications are described. The major contributions are the definition of safety and the development of analysis techniques which allow safety to be quantified. The results presented are of particular importance in medical applications where the inappropriate operation of the computer system can be catastrophic. A microprocessor-based controller developed for an electric wheelchair is described and used as an example to illustrate the basic concepts and modeling techniques. The results demonstrate that reliability considerations alone are insufficient to evaluate the effectiveness of a given design; safety must also be considered to ensure that the best design is selected for a given application.<
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