Question: is it better to get life-saving technology into the market now at an affordable price (but with an obscure hole or two), or wait another five years (while people die) and then deliver something secure at twice the price, making it less widely used.
To be fair, very little of this technology could be classed as life saving... standalone monitors, syringe drivers etc have been around for years, and do a perfectly adequate job, so to suggest that not having this equipment available will allow patients to die is unrealistic at best.
The main reason that Hospital authorities are pushing for this sort of always connected, centrally managed equipment is so they don't have to employ as many staff - one person sitting at a desk with all the patients' vital signs available to them at the same time, and all the alerting in one place.
That doesn't mean that it's essential to the care of patients - the machine that goes beep is a nice-to-have...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
