Interview with Colin Jones-Weinert

As promised here is a summary of our talk with Mr. Colin Jones-Weinert

About Colin

Mr. Jones-Weinert is a CES manager fro SynCardia Systems. He did his undergraduate at the University of Arizona in molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, molecular biophysics with a minor in mathematics. He also holds an MBA from the Eller College of Management. After graduation, Colin began his career at SynCardia as a heart manufacturing technician, working his way to a CES manager. His current role involves directing the manufacturing and production of the artificial hearts.

What We Discussed

We discussed a variety of topics with Colin, but we kept the conversation mostly regarding security of the devices his firm produces. We touched on the various implications for having security, regulation and connectivity with medical devices.

Colin introduced us to the various products his companies sell which include various models of artificial hearts. Currently the systems that SynCardia offers do not have internet capability. In addition, some of the company's devices, such as the C2 drivers are password protected and for many of the devices, the user or healthcare provider can access them.

Mr. Jones-Weinert introduced an example where cybersecurity in medical devices could be a threat. He pointed to an example with Medtronic’s implantable glucose pumps where the medical device connects to a smartphone to administer the glucose dosages. He mentioned that a device or system similar to these pumps require serious security and protection as it's controlled via a smartphone.  

We then touched on regulation where Colin Weinert discussed how FDA requirements are not as updated and that most of the security depends on the company. Another great point that he made was that data storage and backup are very important for medical device as companies cannot afford to lose patient data if a natural disaster or adverse event were to occur.  

From our discussion on regulation, we discussed connectivity of devices and we discussed the Harvard hacking study from our presentation. Colin, mentioned an important point that cybersecurity isn’t just about the ability to control the device or obtain the underlying patient data, but it can be used to steal the code. This dilemma prevents an issue for companies that do not have a patent, or copyright on their code, which makes their information just as vulnerable as their patients.  

Overall, our discussion and conversation with Colin Jones-Weinert  was very interesting and he presented an interesting perspective to the issue as an industry expert in the medical device space. He presented some excellent closing thoughts as we winded down our conversation such as how all our medical devices become significantly more vulnerable as we move into the future and that we should look into more ways on protecting our devices.