COMMISSION IMPLEMENTATION DECISION M/575 was issued 14 April 2021: This is a list of standards the EU Commission is hoping to Harmonize under MDR and IVDR.  One of the issues is the HAS consultant has issued a negative assessment on EN ISO 14971 which the CEN/CLC JTC3 leadership is working with the HAS consultant to address the issues and to draft acceptable European annexes so Harmonization can occur for the standard.  Many of the standards on the list in M/575 reference to EN ISO 14971 so it is highly likely that CEN and CENELEC will reject this newest version of the EU Commission Standardization Request again and we won’t have any Harmonized Standards by the Date of Application (26 May 2021) for the MDR which will cause lots of problems for manufacturers and Notified Bodies and cause more delays for the MDR & likely even for the IVDR I’m sorry to say.  Also, the MDCG 2021-5 “Guidance on standardisation for medical devices” doesn’t seem to clarify when harmonized standards are not published through the Offical Journal of the EU what to do.  In section 3.1 mentions Harmonized standards are voluntary with respect to the MDR & IVDR as they were for the MDD, AIMDD, & IVDD.  The closest the MDCG gets to it is to use the “State of Art” standards approach in section 3.5.

Another important observation is all the newest versions of the General & Collateral IEC 60601 Standards that were issued Summer of 2020 (EN versions were issued later in the year) are listed in Annex I of the EU Commission Standardization Request as the deadline to adopt these standards by 27 May 2024 — These are EN 60601-1, ed. 3.2; EN 60601-1-2, ed. 4.1; EN 60601-1-3, ed. 2.2; EN 60601-1-6, ed. 3.2; EN 60601-1-8, ed. 2.2; EN 60601-1-9, ed. 1.2; EN 60601-1-10, ed. 1.2; EN 60601-1-11, ed. 2.1; & EN 60601-1-12, ed. 1.1 – The Particular Standards EN 60601-2-XX or EN ISO 80601-2-XX listed are primarily based on the previous versions of the General & Collaterals of IEC 60601 standards on the M/575 list so this will likely cause conflicts vs the listed new standards mentioned here.

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This is a newly released standard as of 19 June 2014.  Are you ready to use this standard for your emergency medical services equipment (i.e. equipment used in and around ambulances and at locations where emergency medical services would be needed like a crash site.  The breadth of medical electrical equipment that this will cover is a wide swath and so manufacturers should start thinking about designing their products for these more rugged requirements.  Some of the testing is similar to the Home Use Environment Standard (IEC 60601-1-11) as that was a base for some of the development of this standard (IEC 60601-1-12). The scope of the standards is for Medical Electrical Equipment (MEE) & Medical Electrical Systems (MES) which are intended, as indicated by the IFU by their manufacturer, for use in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Environment.

The definition of EMS Environment per the standard is:

• actual conditions and settings, in which OPERATORS interact with the ME EQUIPMENT or ME SYSTEM, in and around the scene of an emergency outside of a professional healthcare facility where a PATIENT can be given medical care, basic or advanced life support as well as during professional transport to a professional healthcare facility or between professional healthcare facilities