EU postmarket surveillance plans for medical devices

PURPOSE: Recent public health safety issues involving medical devices have led to a growing demand to improve the current passive‐reactive postmarket surveillance (PMS) system. Various European Union (EU) national competent authorities have started to focus on strengthening the postmarket risk evaluation. As a consequence, the new EU medical device regulation was published; it includes the concept of a PMS Plan. METHODS: This publication reviewed Annex III Technical Documentation on PMS and Annex XIV Part B: Postmarket clinical follow‐up from the new Regulation (EU) 2017/745 of the European Parliament and of the Council on medical devices. RESULTS: The results of the PMS activities will be described in the PMS plan and will be used to update other related documents. A modular approach to structure the contents of the PMS plan will help to consistently update other PMS information. It is our suggestion that the PMS plan should consist of a PMS plan Core and a PMS plan Supplement. The PMS plan Core document will describe the PMS system, and the PMS plan Supplement will outline the specific activities performed by the manufacturer for a particular medical device. CONCLUSIONS: The PMS plan may serve as a thorough tool for the benefit‐risk evaluation of medical devices. If properly developed and implemented, it will function as a key player in the establishment of a new framework for proactive safety evaluation of medical devices.