11 Health, a medtech company based in the UK and California, has offered 12 weeks of free access to the Alfred SmartCare Platform, which allows for virtual peer and nursing support for patients with severe chronic digestive disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, and colorectal cancer. The offer is the company’s (Read more...)
Author: Medgadged
Smartphone Attachment to Detect Those Infected with Viruses, Bacteria in Minutes
As the current COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage, there is movement toward restarting life under a “new normal”. The virus may be with us for a long time, but widespread, rapid, and accurate testing may be a way forward. Knowing which individuals have to quarantine themselves and which are free of the virus would go […]
Lungpacer Diaphragm Pacer Gets FDA Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19
Lungpacer Medical, based in Vancouver, Canada, announced that its Diaphragm Pacing Therapy (DPT) System received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for use in weaning COVID-19 patients off of ventilators. Patients on prolonged mechanical ventilation may experience diaphragm disuse atrophy and ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD), which (Read more...)
NASA JPL Ventilator Goes From Development to On-Site Testing in 37 Days
Add the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the list of groups that have re-focused their efforts to help combat the global coronavirus pandemic. The same organization that put men on the moon has now developed a prototype ventilator that passed simulated human testing last week at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount [… (Read more...)
Cochlear Implant Turned-On Remotely to Give Child Hearing
All sorts of medical procedures have to wait to be performed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since some procedures are done in several steps, often separated by weeks or months, there are patients out there that cannot complete the next steps of their therapies. Cochlear implants, which stimulate the auditory nerve to produce hearing [&hellip (Read more...)
MIT’s Comfortable Shirts Loaded with Body Sensors
MIT engineers have developed a way of creating shirts and other clothing items that are embedded with tiny electronic sensors capable of measuring the heart and respiration rates, temperature, and movement. Other vital signs can be added by utilizing additional sensor types. The technology will allow physicians to monitor their patients closely thr (Read more...)
Olympus High End EVIS X1 Endoscopy System Unveiled
Olympus is unveiling its new top-of-the-line endoscopy system, the EVIS X1. The company hopes that the new features offered on-board the EVIS X1 will help with the diagnosis and management of a variety of GI disorders and bronchial conditions. The system sports a number of advancements, including Extended Depth of Field (EDOF), Red Dichromatic Imag (Read more...)
Ultraviolet System to Sterilize Thousands of Masks Per Day
Ultraviolet light, particularly in the UVC range (280–100 nm), is known to inactivate microbes. During the current COVID-19 pandemic there’s a shortage of protective masks, particularly N95 masks that feature electrostatic filters. Cleaning such masks using liquids is not effective, as the electrostatic effect ends up neutralized, so a (Read more...)
Microneedle Array for Universal Vaccine Delivery Developed
Microneedle arrays (MNAs) are a promising way of delivering vaccines into the body. They are nearly pain-free and can penetrate a substantial portion of the skin, which is considered an excellent place to inject vaccines because of the skin’s sensitive and very reactive immune network. Injecting small amounts of a vaccine strategically into t (Read more...)
Xenoscope Disposable 5mm Laparoscope FDA Cleared
Xenocor, a Salt Lake City company, won FDA clearance for its Xenoscope 5mm articulating disposable laparoscope. The device requires no sterilization re-processing between procedures and is thrown away after it’s used, avoiding the necessity for servicing contracts. The entire system being quite compact, it doesn’t need its own large ima (Read more...)
COVID-19 Antibody Test: Interview with Chris Smith, CEO, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics
Testing has become a key issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many countries struggling to perform enough diagnostic tests because of a shortage of staff and resources. The response to COVID-19 has also involved a large-scale lock-down, with many people isolating at home and avoiding the workplace. The economic consequences of this COVID-relate (Read more...)
Camera Images Blood Perfusion at High Resolution Thanks to Pulse Oximeter
How blood moves throughout the body and into the smallest capillaries is hard to observe using existing imaging methods. Yet, poor blood perfusion can be an indicator for a variety of medical conditions, potentially serving as a diagnostic tool and a way to help manage diseases. Infrared thermography is a decent tool for this, but […]
PVA Emergency Ventilator Ready for Production
PVA, a company based outside of Albany, New York that normally provides automation services to a wide variety of industries, has developed and is about to start producing its own emergency ventilator to help address the COVID-19 epidemic. The design is based on one that was approved by the United Kingdom’s Department of Health & [… (Read more...)
Yale’s Ventilator Splitter Receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization
Vent Multiplexor LLC announced that it received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for its device that can split a single ventilator so that it can be used by two patients simultaneously. The Vent Multiplexor device was developed by a team of students and faculty at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. It is a patent-pending […]
CRISPR-Based Test to Diagnose COVID-19 in Less than One Hour
With the COVID-19 pandemic growing globally, new ways of detecting the infection is the need of the hour. University of California, San Francisco researchers have recently published a paper in Nature Biotechnology outlining their approach to diagnose COVID-19 infections from respiratory swabs using CRISPR. The test, called the SARS-CoV2 DETECTR ass (Read more...)
Oxygen Concentrator for N95 Masks to Make Breathing Easier
Paramedics, ICU staff, and anyone else currently working with patients in any capacity is probably wearing a face mask for extended periods of time. N95 masks, which are easy to wear while providing substantial protection, can reduce the amount of oxygen reaching the lungs by up to 20%. This causes fatigue, may lower blood-oxygen saturation, [&hell (Read more...)
Low-Cost Ventilator from Home Depot Components: Interview with Glen Meyerowitz, UCLA Biodesign Fellow
The current shortage of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked significant innovation, including novel designs to split one ventilator into two, repurposing of existing devices to function as ventilators, and new solutions to reduce the need for ventilators. However, perhaps all of these innovations, and more, will be needed to accoun (Read more...)
B. Braun Infusion Pumps with Nebulizers Get FDA Emergency Authorization for COVID-19
Combining infusion pumps with nebulizers has been shown to help deliver nebulized medication to patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA has just issued Emergency Use Authorization for B. Braun’s Perfusor Space Syringe Infusion Pump, Infusomat Space Volumetric Infusion Pump, and (Read more...)
TransAeris Diaphragm Pacing System Gets FDA Emergency Use Authorization for Quicker Ventilator Weaning
As hospitals face the possibility of ventilator shortages for COVID-19 patients, Synapse Biomedical announced that it received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for a device that helps wean patients off ventilators quicker. This, in turn, could free up ventilators for use by other patients. Weaning off of mechanical ventilation is a constant challeng (Read more...)
Rapid Medical Device Manufacturing for COVID-19 Response: Interview with Vicki Holt, CEO, Protolabs
The COVID-19 pandemic rumbles on, and the response to contain and delay the virus is astronomical, with billions of dollars and enormous levels of labor and material resources being deployed to meet the challenge. One of the major bottlenecks in combatting the virus is a lack of testing supplies and essential equipment, such as respirators, [&helli (Read more...)