Fed-Up Hospitals Defy Windows Patching Rules

bingbong writes "According to Network World: 'Amid growing worries that Windows-based medical systems will endanger patients if Microsoft-issued security patches are not applied, hospitals are rebelling against restrictions from device manufacturers that have delayed or prevented such updates. Device makers such as GE Medical Systems, Philips Medical Systems and Agfa say it typically takes months to test Microsoft patches because they could break the medical systems to which they're applied. In some instances, vendors won't authorize patch updates at all.' This is the typical patch vs. crash problem. Unfortunately, the stakes here could be human lives."

Comments

simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just put the patched machines on the systems that run the rooms with the niggers and chinks?

If it is stilling working after a few months, we can move it to everyone else.

Re:Stop playing solitaire on my dialysis machine

[Gumby]

Please don't using "saving a buck" as if it is a curse. That is the foundation of our country's wealth. Almost all of the tech that is developed and sold is driven by that goal - "to save a buck". Note that making medical equipment (or any other) cost 10x as much will reduce the amount of equipment purchased by roughly 10x. There are certainly good and bad choices to make - and TCO is a critical but difficult component of these decisions. But don't curse the entrepreneur for "saving a buck!"

Re:Stop playing solitaire on my dialysis machine

[Locutus]

But how can a hospital even use MS Windows? IIRC, the EULA says that Microsoft can access the system and it's data and that is against the public privacy prection laws.

IMO, they could only be allowed to run W2k( pre SP2 ) and anything BEFORE that. Surely not MS Windows XP.

Maybe it's time for a class action. IMHO.

LoB

Re:Stop playing solitaire on my dialysis machine

[Pieroxy]

Very honestly, most of these machines couldn't "kill omeone". I mean, if the radiation therapy machine crashes, nobody dies.

There really are a few machines that would be highly critical, and I'm not sure those run UNIX or Windows.

Re:Stop playing solitaire on my dialysis machine

[Pieroxy]

Wow, you mean if the control computer crashes leaving the shutter to the Cobalt source open nobody could die? How about gamma knife overexposing the brain stem, cooking the brain stem couldn't possibly kill someone. How about a faulty homing cycle where the radiation head homes to the patient table, even if a patient is there.

And during all that time I guess the operator is just looking at it from behind the console, laughing his ass off of the patient getting his brain fried.

Re:Stop playing solitaire on my dialysis machine

[black mariah]

Could you just be a bit more of a dumbass fanboy? I don't think you're doing your fair share of OSS cock sucking. Mix in an M$ or two next time.

Idiot.