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Advice for Patients: Change in Daylight Saving Time May Affect Your Medical Equipment in an Unpredictable WayMarch 1, 2007 If you have any medical equipment that uses, creates or records time information about your diagnosis or treatment and the manufacturer has not updated it, the equipment may not work properly when the new Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts and ends this year and in future years. Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. starts three weeks earlier and ends one week later this year, compared to the last several years. Medical equipment you use was likely made before the DST rules were recently changed and so your equipment may use the wrong dates for the start and end of daylight saving time. If you experience a problem, it’s most likely to occur on the following dates:
The extent and seriousness of this problem is unclear. We do not know if any medical equipment will be affected, how it will be affected, or how it may affect patients. Although we don't know what specific equipment may fail to work correctly, we are concerned about equipment that consumers or patients use in their homes. We have already notified doctors, nurses, and hospitals of our concerns with a Preliminary Public Health Notification. What you need to do
Updated March 29, 2007 |
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