MPN casts a spotlight on innovation in Medtech

MPN shines a light on some of the sector’s brightest innovation

It’s a kind of magic: Wand connects medical devices to wifi

In the US, Dartmouth College has developed Wanda, a device that can read wifi passwords and transfer this information to medical devices wirelessly.

The Wanda prototype can acquire a network name and password by being plugged into a wifi router.  To transfer the wifi data to the medical device Wanda is detached from the router and pointed at a medical device  – because the medical device is close to the wand, it can reconstruct the information. However, a hacker farther away could not.

Wanda, is part of a multi-university project to develop ways to protect patient confidentiality as healthcare increasingly moves out of hospitals and doctors' offices and into the home. But beyond safety, simplicity also is a key goal, said doctoral student Tim Pierson, Wanda's creator to ABC News.

Pierson said: “Quite frequently in the computer security business, we invent things that are super-secure but hard to use and people don't understand them: We set out to make something that my parents and in-laws could use."

With Wanda, a doctor could send a patient home with a wifi enabled blood pressure cuff and instead of having to type in a passcode to connect the monitor to a home wifi network, the patient just points Wanda at the device. Once that connection is made, blood pressure readings can be transmitted back to the doctor's office, reported ABC News.

Response unit: Wearable saves lives on the battlefield

The First Response Monitor by Cambridge Design Partnership, is designed to help medics monitor both heart rate and respiratory rate.

According to Cambridge Design Partnership respiratory rate is often neglected by automated monitoring systems.

However, the benefits of accurately monitoring respiratory rate are clear and when combined with other parameters, such as heart rate and body temperature, can indicate life-threatening conditions such as sepsis.

When designing the new compact device, Cambridge Design Partnership interviewed a range of army medics about their needs and challenges in multiple casualty emergency situations.

An unmet need was identified for a low-cost device to bridge the gap between manual methods of vital signs measurement and more expensive patient monitoring systems.

The First Response Monitor is a lightweight, robust and low-cost wearable biometric device which monitors patients and collects, then transmits, data in real-time. This enables the medic to care for a greater number of casualties, providing more effective casualty triage to deliver improved patient outcomes.

The small device clips onto a patient’s nose and monitors breathing rate and heart rate, giving ‘at a glance’ indication of both parameters.

This data can then transmitted using bluetooth to a smartphone app or tablet, enabling data analyses such as individual patient trend graphs and multiple patient triage or situational awareness across the group.

James Baker, partner, Cambridge Design Partnership said: “With the First Response Monitor we’ve combined our expertise in wearable connected devices with our extensive medical experience to develop a technology for effectively measuring breathing and heart rate.

“The monitor can help save lives in a variety of environments and we’re really keen to speak to partners about developing the potential applications further.”

Passing the test: Google develops bandage-sized glucose monitor

The collaboration will pair DexCom's sensor technology with Google's miniaturised electronics platform to create the G4 Platinum Receiver.

The G4 Platinum Receiver, for continuous glucose monitoring, will have a bandage-sized sensor that will be connected to the cloud.

Kevin Sayer, president and chief executive officer of DexCom, said: "This partnership has the potential to change the face of diabetes technology forever.

"Working together, we believe we can introduce products that will move us beyond our core type 1 business to become the standard of care for all people living with diabetes."

S’up’ with your spoon?

Finding it almost impossible to eat with normal cutlery due to having cerebral palsy, Grant Douglas worked with industrial designer Mark Penver, from the Glasgow-based agency 4C Design, to create the S’Up spoon with a deep capacity for people with shaky hands. 

With the financial backing secured through a Kickstarter campaign the group contacted Proto Labs, which sent out a free material sample kit, so that it could start to select suitable materials and finishes.  

It was determined that polypropylene, or ABS with a beaded finish, provided the best surface finish as it allowed the food to freely slip out of the spoon head.

Penver said: “The advice offered by Proto Labs proved to be very helpful and they were patient during the quoting process – even though we went through 20 or more iterations as the design evolved.”  

He went on to explain that selecting a UK manufacturer was important to his team so visited Proto Lab’s Telford manufacturing base for a tour of the facilities.

Penver said: “It was mind blowing that parts could be produced in just one day and their approach has saved us a considerable amount of money.

“Using Proto Labs we’ve been able to get the S’up Spoon out into the market much faster and not just improve the lives of people with cerebral palsy but those with similar symptoms such as essential tremors and Parkinson’s disease.”

The success of the S’up Spoon has led to 4C Design forming a company with Grant Douglas called S’up Products.