Risk-based EMC Approach in Hospital Environment

A modern hospital has a wide range of medical devices that can be technologically very advanced and complex in terms of electromagnetic emissions and susceptibility. It is a public environment where people carry communication equipment and/or medical active implants. Therefore, electromagnetic interference among the devices in the hospital environment is not an unfamiliar topic. There is a misconception among engineers that if all medical devices comply with harmonized standards, then the installation of a large number of medical devices altogether would work absolutely fine. However, this is not always true, and so for complex systems, a smarter approach is necessary to assess and control the risks of electromagnetic interference. This paper emphasizes the importance of using the risk-based approach to deal with the often unpredictable factors causing electromagnetic interference in a complex hospital environment.