Improved sharing of information about medical devices

ACCAN recently submitted to the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA) consultation on improved sharing of information about medical devices. We recommend the TGA: 

• Improve regulatory coordination between the TGA and the Australian Communications and Media Authority to address potential device limitations arising from their reliance on telecommunications or connectivity services.

• Ensure consumers are clearly informed about how telecommunications outages and unreliable coverage can affect both a medical device’s performance and back up measures, such as calling 000. 

• Ensure consumers are clearly informed about the impact of unreliable connectivity for grey market medical devices. 

• Provide accessible public information and consider mandatory labelling to highlight these telecommunications-related risks to device performance.