Group Case: Therac 25 Should Hospitals Stop Using Therac 25 or Allow the Continued Use of Therac 25
Stop the use of Therac 25 until the error is fixed or Therac 25 is replaced
Don't Stop the Use of Therac 25
Stakeholders
Who is Harmed
The hospitals because now they have to train operators on new equipment
Not everyone was harmed by Therac 25 and it does help some patients. So the patients would also be harmed because they can't receive treatment.
AECL because they loses clients and gain a bad reputation
The programers can lose their job because of this error
Who Benefits
Hospitals won't gain bad reputation because of the Use of Therac 25
hospitals won't recieve a potential lawsuits for wrongful death
The patients won't be
Potentially harmed by this error
Doctors won't lose their medical license from Harming a Patient
Pros
The patients won't be potential harmed by this error
Hospitals won't get a bad reputation from the use of Therac 25
Doctors won't potentially lose their medical license or receive a lawsuit
Cons
AECL has to spend time and resouces fixing the error
hospital have to find another way to treat patients or find new equipment
The hospital have to train operators on new equiment
The Hospitals will recieve better equipment
AECL Loses a sellable prouduct until Therac 25 is fixed
The hospitals
The Doctors
The programer of the Software
The Patients
The company selling Therac 25 (Atomic Energy Canada Limited (AECL) )
Relevant Facts
The Programmers of the Software could lose their jobs on such a error
The patients due to a error in the software can die
Only Four died from Therac 25 and two with lifelong injuries
Therac 25 was a machine designed for cancer treatments,
Therac 25 uses radiation to treat patients
the Therac-25 relied heavily on the machine’s software for control and hence for safety.
What if everyone Stop the using Therac 25
No more Patients would Potentially be harmed, but some Patients would have to wait until ethier, the error is fixed, or a hospital recieve new equitment
Rights may be abridged
Right of access to care
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What is the best out of the two
any future changes, policy changes, etc. that may prevent this dilemma.
A policy that states that: Any errors found in medical software must halt the use of the software
Operators should be extensibly trained on the equipment and understand the in's and out's of the equipment and software
A policy should be made to make any software for medical use should be extensibly tested for errors big or small
Cons
Pros
Who can be harmed
Who Benefits
What if everyone Don't Stop the Use of Therac 25
Rights may be abridged
Hospitals won't have to spend money trying to replace equipment and time training operators
AECL can continue to sell off Therac 25
Patients can be continued to be treated
The Hospital make more money
There's a chance a patient can be harmed by Therac 25
Chance that hospitals can be sued for faulty software because it was harmful or caused death
Loss in money from buying the faulty software
todays standards would not protect the public
Hospitals might receive a wrongful death lawsuit harming the Hospital reputation
This can harm the doctors reputation who gave this treatment to their patients and chose to ignore the four deaths that happened because of Therac 25
If the number of deaths increases AECL will recieve a bad reputation
More patients might be harmed or die because of the error
Hospitals that use the software that know the software is faulty for money gain
The Programmer
Patients that need x-rays
Pateints that need radiation therapy
The Programmer will continue benefiting from his faulty software
More patients will die due to increase of radiation overdoses and the trust in healthcare will decrease.
Cancer treatment facilities will profit from the ignorance of patients
the Right of Patient Safety
Stopping the use of Therac 25 was the best choice out of the two