I've been wondering about this lately. My stepdad has heart failure and they put a heart pump in his chest. It regulates blood flow and settings can be changed, etc. Leave it to a dev to think "How much testing has gone into this thing?" Even one minor slip-up in his blood flow, either too high or too low, could mean a stroke and possibly death. Or, God forbid, the thing crashes somehow and stops working.
That machine is much easier to code than a space shuttle obviously, but I still wondered about it. The tech has to be rock solid. Even one malfunction could cause so much despair in a family, and could also cost your company millions.
I don't know much about heart pumps, but I do have an implanted pacer/defibrillator, and I'm currently not too happy with the people who made it.
I've been told by my cardiologist (and engineers working for the manufacturer) that it doesn't "fail safe" if the battery level drops too low to keep the device running (which is inevitable if it isn't replaced after 7-8 years, but it can and sometimes does happen prematurely and without warning).
In that situation, not only can it suddenly become unable to correct an arrhythmia (as expected), it could actually cause one all by itself, or pace above 200BPM for no reason.
No one I've talked to in the healthcare industry seems at all surprised about this for some reason. They just started monitoring it more often the closer it got to the "replace me now" indicator level.
That machine is much easier to code than a space shuttle obviously, but I still wondered about it. The tech has to be rock solid. Even one malfunction could cause so much despair in a family, and could also cost your company millions.