RICOH 3D partnership offers point of care 3D printing services

Ricoh USA has announced at the RSNA Assembly and Annual Meeting, a partnership with Materialise that will provide software solutions to support RICOH 3D for Healthcare – a HIPAA-compliant, ISO 13485 certified 3D medical manufacturing centre for the development, design and production of 3D-printed anatomic models – in both their centralised medical device manufacturing facility, as well as in Ricoh's Point of Care facilities.

Through the partnership, Ricoh will now be able to drive more personalised healthcare solutions and make it simple to create or expand on-site Point of Care centres.

With an uptick in 3D printing, hospitals are either now seeking to enter the market by establishing Point of Care centres onsite or scaling existing offerings. A main driver of either option is co-located management of facilities and production through partners such as Ricoh with technologies like those from Materialise. However, it is important for care providers to recognise that when these 3D-printed models and other instruments are used for patient care, they may be considered medical devices, subject to FDA regulation. With RICOH 3D for Healthcare, hospitals can adopt or advance Point of Care manufacturing quickly and affordably without the need to become an FDA registered medical device manufacturer, implement a complex and costly quality management system, navigate regulatory requirements, or tackle the administrative aspects to support it all with a multidisciplinary team. The partnership reimagines Point of Care 3D printing to democratise enterprise-wide, patient-specific surgical innovation to the rest of the population.

Ricoh is partnering with Materialise to leverage their software solutions to bring affordable Point of Care 3D printing services to hospitals across the country. The partnership will allow both parties to expand the use of Materialise software within Ricoh's workflows and continually improve the available toolset to better serve patient care.

"Materialise's software tools will not only help Ricoh provide a better experience for its customers, but also support Ricoh in its goal democratising equitable access to impactful tools such as patient-specific anatomic models," said Gary Turner, managing director, Additive Manufacturing, North America, Ricoh USA. "The ecosystem of Ricoh partners, inclusive of Materialise, Merative and Stratasys, has enabled Ricoh to bring world-class software in a first-of-its-kind, end-to-end solution to different healthcare institutions around country to drive more Point of Care locations and capabilities nationally."

"Outside of large academic medical centres, physician and patient access to 3D printing applications has been limited," said Bryan Crutchfield, vice president and general manager of Materialise North America. "This is often due to a lack of resources and technical knowledge to implement and operationalise the technology in the hospital environment. This partnership with Ricoh brings a large managed services infrastructure, which will enable hospital systems to more quickly and affordably implement and scale 3D technology for their physicians and patients. We are excited to partner with Ricoh to bring our end-to-end software platforms to support 3D planning and 3D printing applications at the Point of Care."

Materialise is the latest strategic partnership helping Ricoh continue to lead the way in offering democratised access to patient-specific 3D-printed models in healthcare. 

  • Merge by Merative: Through an expanded partnership with Merge by Merative, a specialist in flexible enterprise imaging solutions, Ricoh will make it easier for hospitals and clinicians to access the RICOH 3D for Healthcare Platform via the new PACS Print Gateway. The workflow will be easily initiated via a simple "Send to RICOH 3D" button that can be added to a variety of DICOM viewers. This will initiate the transfer of the appropriate DICOM study to a secure, cloud-based vendor neutral archive. It will also activate the RICOH 3D for Healthcare Case Management Portal to easily manage the case in conjunction with the clinical team. This expansion of Ricoh's partnership with Merge by Merative will accelerate Ricoh's goal of streamlining workflow to more easily democratise access to the program so that more clinicians and therefore more patients can gain access to these patient specific solutions. 
  • Stratasys: RICOH 3D for Healthcare engages in a strategic collaboration with Stratasys to leverage their 3D printing technology to expand access to 3D-printed medical models.

Ricoh's Managed Services platform will play a crucial role in how Ricoh will provide medical manufacturing services on-site at the Point of Care. RICOH 3D for Healthcare has received 510(k) clearances from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patient-specific anatomic modelling for diagnostic use, including cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and breast applications, as well as craniomaxillofacial (CMF) and orthopaedic patient-specific anatomic modelling. The clearances empower Ricoh to support more surgical specialties and patient diagnoses to print diagnostic quality 3D anatomic models of bony and soft tissue using Stratasys 3D printing technology and materials. With the ability to manage 3D print operations at the Point of Care, RICOH 3D for Healthcare provides a streamlined and efficient solution for producing these models.

RICOH 3D for Healthcare is taking a phased approach to integrate Point of Care manufacturing into healthcare systems nationally, thereby creating a nationwide ecosystem for networking and cross-system collaboration. Ricoh currently supports thousands of healthcare organisations with various aspects of their business, including 9 out of 11 of the largest for-profit hospital systems, and 22 out of 32 of the largest nonprofit hospital systems, with about 3,200 facilities under its support – and is also responsible for managing over 1 million pieces of equipment in the United States through more than 2,100 US field technicians across various industries.

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