[p2p-research] 9 killer telemedicine apps

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> http://blog.soliant.com/healthcare-it/9-killer-apps-that-will-revolutionize-healthcare/#

I know you were just quoting the article title, but it seems like "killer 
apps" are not something one would want to see in medicine? :-)

"An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents"
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html
"""
   Computers are increasingly being introduced into safety-critical systems 
and, as a consequence, have been involved in accidents. Some of the most 
widely cited software-related accidents in safety-critical systems involved 
a computerized radiation therapy machine called the Therac-25. Between June 
1985 and January 1987, six known accidents involved massive overdoses by the 
Therac-25 -- with resultant deaths and serious injuries. They have been 
described as the worst series of radiation accidents in the 35-year history 
of medical accelerators.
   With information for this article taken from publicly available 
documents, we present a detailed accident investigation of the factors 
involved in the overdoses and the attempts by the users, manufacturers, and 
the US and Canadian governments to deal with them. Our goal is to help 
others learn from this experience, not to criticize the equipment's 
manufacturer or anyone else. The mistakes that were made are not unique to 
this manufacturer but are, unfortunately, fairly common in other 
safety-critical systems. As Frank Houston of the US Food and Drug 
Administration (FDA) said, "A significant amount of software for 
life-critical systems comes from small firms, especially in the medical 
device industry; firms that fit the profile of those resistant to or 
uninformed of the principles of either system safety or software engineering."
   Furthermore, these problems are not limited to the medical industry. It 
is still a common belief that any good engineer can build software, 
regardless of whether he or she is trained in state-of-the-art 
software-engineering procedures. Many companies building safety-critical 
software are not using proper procedures from a software-engineering and 
safety-engineering perspective.
   Most accidents are system accidents; that is, they stem from complex 
interactions between various components and activities. To attribute a 
single cause to an accident is usually a serious mistake. In this article, 
we hope to demonstrate the complex nature of accidents and the need to 
investigate all aspects of system development and operation to understand 
what has happened and to prevent future accidents. ...
"""

Which raises of the issue of how does one ensure that peer produced software 
meets certain standards as to safety or effectiveness? Peer certification 
processes?

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/