Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete?

Re:Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete? by friend_and_foe on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @02:58AM (#36054933)

Any company that brings a medical implant device to market should be required by law to establish a trust to fund continued support of the device for the natural lifespan of the youngest/longest lived recipient, period.

Also, all designs, software and patents should be open sourced/released to the public domain if the company goes bankrupt or the product line gets sunsetted.

This is surgery, these are peoples lives. These are their organs. People that make executive decisions like this are subhuman scum.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete? by RecycledEle on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @09:29AM (#36057752)

Putting a requirement to support a product for another 80+ years will prevent small volume product from ever hitting the market and will increase the cost to the consumer.

What if we decrease the regulation on things that do not harm the patient when they fail, so they can but a device for $100 on Amazon rather than $10k at the hospital?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete? by friend_and_foe on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @09:56AM (#36058133)

Sure, glasses, hearing aids, that's all fine.

If your product needs to be surgically installed in a patient, if you can't afford to support it for the lifetime of the patient the product isn't viable and shouldn't be brought to market.

[ Parent | on HN ]