The challenges of medical device electronics

The medical electronics market is growing and with that comes challenges.
According to recent sources the medical electronics market size is expected to witness 13% CAGR from 2019 to 2025 and it has been estimated that it could reach $4.2billion by 2026. Rising standards of living and aspirations towards a healthier lifestyle are all factors driving consumers to take responsibility for their own health using advancements in medical devices.

With this increase in demand comes challenges that must be addressed during the design and manufacturing process before being brought to the market. The challenges at the forefront of this are:

Safety
Safety, both for the patient and healthcare professionals, is the first requirement that an electromedical device must comply with. This can only be achieved through careful evaluation of all phases of the product development cycle, starting from the selection of the components.

Miniaturisation
Miniaturisation of medical devices poses a series of challenges for design engineers. Technology has made it possible to design increasingly powerful and energy-efficient devices in shrinking sizes, advances in battery cells have not developed at the same speed or in the same way. The challenge is to balance compact and sleeker designs with effective power.

Security
As most medical devices now need some sort of connectivity there is potential for data exposure and violations. This problem is serious in the medical device industry as the data may represent a privacy violation or an impediment to correct measurement and misanalysis.

Cost
As the demand grows so will the competitiveness of the market.