[Slashdot] - 'Project BioMed' Fights for the Right to Repair Medical Devices

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Long-time Slashdot reader chicksdaddy writes: One of the less-reported stories of this pandemic is the myriad of ways in which COVID has exposed changes to the medical device market and the increasingly draconian software licensing practices that have made servicing and repairing medical devices much more difficult, slow and expensive. In its latest episode, Security Ledger Podcast goes behind the scenes of Project BioMed, an effort headed up by repair site iFixit to democratize access to repair and servicing information for medical devices including (and especially) ventilators and respirators. Kylie Wiens, CEO of iFixit, talks about the critical role played by biomedical technicians, who keep hospital equipment up and running, and about the growing efforts by medical device OEMs to deny hospitals and biomeds access to the information they need to service equipment. The podcast also interviews Jonathan Krones, an Assistant Professor at Boston College and one of an army of volunteers, including hundreds of librarians and archivists who sorted through and cataloged hundreds of thousands of pages of medical device servicing information donated by biomedical technicians as part of the project.

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