Y2K Update
AMA publication gives docs a focus on Millennium Bug’
By DON LONG
Healthcare InfoTech Managing Editor
A publication titled "The Year 2000 Problem: Guidelines for Protecting Your Patients and Practice" has been released by the American Medical Association (AMA; Chicago), with its purpose being to provide an overview of the Y2K "bug" and raise physician awareness about that problem.
In issuing the publication, the AMA says that physicians must be aware of the potential Y2K glitches because of the "potentially devastating operational and financial implications of failing to understand and address these issues within their practices."
The 73-page publication covers a variety of topics, some of the most important being Year 2000 "Standard of Care;" a primer on contract and tort law related to the issue; discussion of general and criminal liability; billing, insurance and medical device issues: and guidelines for Year 2000 self-assessment.
Besides discussing these topics, the publication offers sample warranty and compliance forms and vendor inquiry letters, plus a list of Year 2000 Internet sources.
Throughout the publication, it offers "Practical Tips" to physicians for achieving compliance. Some of these should be of interest to software vendors, medical device manufacturers, and anyone else interested in the Y2K problem as it impacts healthcare. For example:
• In sending letters to vendors: "Outline your concern as to the Year 2000 issue and ask them to respond with a description of how they are approaching the problem. The results will help you gauge which of these vendors is likely to let you down. Beware of those who don’t respond."
• "Sellers may argue that any contractual warranty was expressly limited to a specific time period . . . In response, purchasers should argue that even though they did not notify the seller of a warranty defect during the initial warranty period, the Year 2000 bug was inherent in the product, the product was in fact therefore defective . . ."
• " . . . when in doubt its is imperative to protect your rights by filing suit before the earliest possible time that an applicable statute of limitations could run."
• "Beware of the It’s a new piece of equipment, so it should be OK’ trap. Considerable numbers of technology-based equipment such as computers, telephones and other electronics are still being manufactured to design specifications that would render them useless in the year 2000."
Release of the new publication is part of the AMA’s national campaign, titled Moving Medicine Into the New Millennium: Meeting the Year 2000 Challenge.
Other parts of this effort, according to the AMA, have included offering regional seminars focusing on the legal issues, meetings with specialty medical societies to discuss levels of Y2K preparedness, and the presentation of regular feature articles in AMA publications.
Medtronic upgrades Y2K site
The major medical device manufacturer Medtronic (Minneapolis) has launched an updated Year 2000 Internet site in order to provide information concerning the compliance of its medical devices, including its well-known line of implantable pacemakers, defibrillators and neurostimulators. Those devices are all Year 2000 compliant, according to the company.
In a statement announcing the upgraded site, the company said that despite assurances that these devices will be fully functioning with the new year, "inquiries have continued and some callers have heard erroneous reports" of Y2K breakdowns. Thus, the new site is intended to help "reassure patients, physicians and hospitals regarding Medtronic’s products and the Year 2000 problem."
The only products not compliant, according to statements on the site, are "a few requiring software upgrade or manual date changes and two discontinued products that are non-compliant." Apart from these exceptions, "Delivery of therapy is not affected by the Year 2000 status of any of these products."
Besides being a major supplier of implantable defibrillators and related programming accessories, Medtronic manufactures reports that it manufactures about half of the 450,000 pacemakers implanted annually "and about 80% of the implantable neurostimulation and drug delivery devices."
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