Healthcare today is an ever-changing marketplace where technological advances fuel change and increase the demand for innovative ideas that often spawn a series of new applications. In today’s medical device marketplace, the demand for reliable and safe medical device equipment instrumentation comes not only from the clinical end user, but also the informed consumer.
Healthcare safety is far and away the No. 1 concern among health care practitioners and consumers. Much of the impetus for cultural change and the focus on safety and quality in the U.S. healthcare system can be attributed to a 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), entitled “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.” Since the publication of the groundbreaking IOM report, the transformation to building a safer healthcare system has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind. For those involved in the development and manufacturing of medical devices and equipment, the demand for safety and quality brings with it new and exciting challenges. How does one build equipment and devices that meet the hundreds of stringent needs of the clinical end user and health care consumer? How does one decide with whom to partner in this far-reaching world of medical device and equipment manufacturing? You know caregivers require products that will assist them in achieving the best possible clinical outcomes for their patients. Patients and clinicians require medication delivery pumps that deliver accurate safe doses of medications. While, devices that deliver continuous positive airway pressure must be powerful, quiet and capable of cycling quickly between functions. Where does an OEM turn to find motors capable of navigating the many demands of the health care industry? The capability of our medical device industry to build reliable and safe medical devices has never before been so great. Yet the technological advancements in medication delivery and airway management have presented challenges to an OEM thriving to keep pace in today’s marketplace.Medication Delivery
Thanks to the ever-growing body of research, the treatment for many diseases has evolved with time. Research has led to medical advances that prolong lives and allow disease sufferers to live longer more productive lives. Today, the key to prolonging life is not always found in the hands of a skilled surgeon, but in the medication used to treat illness and injury. Pharmaceutical advances have made medication administration the primary means of treatment of many conditions. Medications can be delivered by a host of routes and the safe appropriate administration of medications is the key to a successful recovery
Recently, the makers of a general infusion system called upon Danaher Motion to support their precise fluid delivery needs. Danaher Motion worked with this manufacturer to supply a 16 mm diameter DC coreless brushed DC motor with an integrated magneto resistive encoder, a reduction gearhead with spur gears, and a rotor inertia. However, this motor was not chosen for the response time, but for low current draw, which would extend the device’s battery life. The advantage this presented was an extremely quiet motor with a winding/gear reduction ratio that allowed the motor to work close to its peak efficiency point under the most common of the customer’s application conditions.
Bi-PAP
Twenty years ago, most physicians never offered up the diagnosis of sleep apnea to their patients. Many people suffered from chronic snoring that would not only torment their own night of rest but that of their spouse as well. Today, thanks to advances in modern medicine, physicians are not only more capable of diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), but capable of providing the cure.
A Bi-PAP diagnoses obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. |
Recently, a US-based bi-pap manufacturer who was developing a new family of Bi-pap devices approached Danaher Motion in search of a custom miniature motor that would attend to stringent application requirements for the new design. The OEM specification required the motor to adjust air-flow pressure in time intervals of 150 to 200 msec. For this application, a 22-mm brushless motor was recommended. Because brushless slotless motors have an extremely low inertia characteristic, once the bi-pap device senses the patient’s breathing pattern, the motor is capable of adjusting airflow pressure in 150-200 msec. This air-flow adjustment time is achieved thanks to an inertia of 3.9 x10-7 kgm2 and a mechanical time constant of 4.2 msec. The brushless motor offers a significant competitive clinical advantage by allowing the bi-pap device to make exceptionally quick airflow adjustments that truly enhance patient comfort, thereby directly improving patient compliance and outcomes. The capabilities of the brushless motor do not stop with its ability to react quickly and capably to changing drive needs. This bi-pap manufacturer also added one more request to the motor. Most patients require the use of bi-pap thera