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"The vast majority of computer-controlled medical devices used and
marketed in the United States will not be significantly affected by the Y2K
date problem," the FDA stated on Aug 24th..
The FDA assured patients that most home medical devices or implanted devices such as heart
pacemakers or defibrillators do not depend on the current date to operate properly
and will not be at all affected by the change in date. However, some glucose
monitors, which measure diabetics' blood sugar levels, could be affected. They use
the date to store prior recordings of blood glucose.
Devices that could be affected by the Y2K problem are used primarily in
hospitals and laboratories, the FDA said. Those devices include some ultrasound systems,
kidney dialysis machines, blood-product devices and planning systems for radiation
therapy.
TO LEARN MORE:
The FDA has listed medical devices that could face Y2K failures on its Web
site at http://www.fda.gov/oc/y2k/.
Health-Minder and Y2K:
Health-Minder software uses dates in every health event you record. Dates
are an important part of your medical history. When you enter a family
member's birth date, Health-Minder requires you to enter the year with 4 digits
("1901", for example, not "01") so that Health-Minder can check all
your date entries for correctness. For example, if you were born in
1944, Health-Minder won't allow you to say you had a mammogram in 1922.
If there is any ambiguity about the date, Health-Minder will ask you to enter the
date with all four digits. The accuracy of your medical records is important to you
and to Health-Minder.
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