Standby mode is a mode that turns your phone into an Echo show if you plug it in and put it on its side. Like other focus modes in iOS (do not disturb, bedtime, etc) users can disable notifications for this mode. This is bad because it looks like Abbott didn’t ensure their notifications are set to “critical.” Critical alerts ignore settings that hide notifications. Critical alerts was a feature that was introduced 5 years ago.
Assistive Access is basically a new grandma-mode for phones. It allows a guardian or caregiver to turn an iPhone into a super dumb phone. Abbott has not built support for this yet. You have to go through a complex setup process for Assistive Access, so this is likely another edge case.
Instead of telling people to keep notifications on, and not to enable a new lockdown mode, Abbott is telling people to disable system updates. This smells like they actually didn’t test iOS 17 over the last 5 months, and now their legal team is worried that there might be other hidden issues.
IMHO, this story makes things seem worse than they are. That said, if you depend on some software for your anything critical, it is a best practice to NOT upgrade to the latest and greatest major point release of any operating system. Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, etc. Wait at least 3 months until the kinks are ironed out.