As the United States braces for what many think may be most critical weeks in the coronavirus crisis, many companies are temporarily pivoting their manufacturing capabilities to focus on the mass shortages of PPE and medical equipment. Most notably are car manufacturers that are using their expertise in hardware engineering and manufacturing to produce much-needed […]
Author: Medgadged
Optimizer System for Cardiac Contractility Modulation: Interview with Dr. Ishu Rao, Medical Director of Impulse Dynamics
Impulse Dynamics, based in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, has developed the Optimizer system, a device designed to improve myocardial contractility in patients with heart failure. The system is intended to improve the quality of life of heart failure patients by reducing the severity of their symptoms. At present, many heart failure patients have few options […]
Oxford’s Emergency Ventilator Project Steaming Ahead
The University of Oxford and King’s College London have teamed up to develop and are now testing a new emergency ventilator that consists of devices that commonly exist in clinical spaces and scientific laboratories, and a few simple parts that can be created through 3D printing. Bringing together these devices allows the team to create […]
Clear Face Masks for The Deaf and Hard of Hearing
There are hundreds of groups around the world making face masks as fast as they can to help slow the spread of COVID-19. While face masks can help to block particulates from entering the nose and mouth, they also make it impossible to see the mouth moving when the wearer is talking. This is actually […]
3D Printed Brain Implants Using Conductive Polymer Ink
Conductive polymers are a fascinating category of materials that are particularly exciting for biomedicine because of their flexibility, conductivity, and biocompatibility. Existing conducting polymers, though, can only be applied to other materials using traditional methods that are not suitable for 3D printing. Now, researchers at MIT have developed an impressive conducting polymer ink that can […]
BiWaze Cough System Receives FDA Clearance to Help Clear Secretions
ABM Respiratory Care, a company with offices in USA, Singapore, and India, announced that it has received FDA 510(k) clearance to market its BiWaze Cough System, a device for removing secretions in patients who are unable to cough or clear secretions effectively. The BiWaze Cough System consists of a touch-screen device connected to a non-invasive […]
Ambulnz’s Software Facilitates Timely Medical Transportion During COVID-19 Pandemic
Ambulnz is a non-emergency on-demand ambulance provider that is working to improve on traditional medical transportation through the implementation and integration of various technologies. The firm describes itself as a “software-enabled medical transportation company”. When a patient needs to be moved to a new facility for treatment out of a hospital, out-patient treatment clinic, doctor, […]
AnapnoGuard Helps Prevent Ventilator Complications
Ventilators are important to maintain patients with severe respiratory distress due to COVID-19, but the machines carry their own risks. An over-inflated endotracheal tube cuff could damage the trachea, while an under-inflated cuff could result in aspiration and pneumonia. AnapnoGuard, developed by Hospitech Respiration, an Israeli firm, is an endotracheal tube plus control unit meant […]
Next-Gen TherOx SuperSaturated Oxygen Delivery System FDA Approved
ZOLL Medical, now a part of Asahi Kasei Group, won FDA approval for the latest version of its TherOx System. The product is designed to deliver SuperSaturated Oxygen (SSO2) therapy to limit heart muscle loss following “widowmaker” heart attacks, aka left anterior descending ST-elevation myocardial infarction (LAD STEMI) chronic total obstruction. The system is used […]
CardioQuip’s Cooler-Heaters EU Cleared to Help With Respiratory Distress
CardioQuip, a firm based in College Station, Texas, won European regulatory approval (CE Mark) for its MCH-1000 cooler-heaters that are used to control patient body temperature, typically during lung or heart procedures. This could be particularly useful during the current COVID-19 pandemic, since the MCH-1000 can be used alongside extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to address […]
BardyDx Patch for Ambulatory Cardiac Monitoring: Interview with Chief Commercial Officer Ken Nelson
Many cardiac arrhythmias are episodic and only detectable after continuously monitoring the heart’s rhythm for several days or weeks. In particular, atrial arrhythmias can be a diagnostic challenge due to the difficulty in clearly visualizing the P wave on an ECG. The two main monitoring options are either Holter monitors, which capture high-quality signals but […]
INVU Receives FDA Clearance for Remote Pregnancy Monitoring System
Nuvo Group announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA to market INVU, a wearable device that remotely monitors fetal and maternal heart rates. Fetal and maternal heart rates are important measurements late in pregnancy, and an elevated fetal heart rate can be one of the first signals of fetal distress. Currently, obtaining […]
RAPIDPoint 500e Blood Gas Analyzer FDA Cleared to Help Ventilated Patients
To help address the COVID-19 emergency that’s taking over emergency rooms and intensive care units in the United States, the FDA has cleared the RAPIDPoint 500e blood gas system from Siemens Healthineers. The device uses the company’s Integri-sense technology to provide results on blood gas, electrolyte, metabolite, CO-oximetry, and neonatal bilirubin. This is important during […]
Robotic COVID-19 Testing Lab Can Process 1000 Patient Samples Daily
Researchers at UC Berkeley have set up a “pop-up” robotic COVID-19 testing lab that can process up to 1000 patient samples a day, and it could ramp up to as many as 3000 a day, if required. The initiative received donations of high-throughput robotic PCR systems from campus research labs within Berkeley, and the new […]
STERRAD Sterilizers Triple Lifetime of N95 Masks
STERRAD sterilizers, made by Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP), an Irvine, California firm, are a common sight in hospitals around the world. They’re used to reprocess surgical tools and other equipment, but now the same devices can be immediately utilized to turn single-use N95 masks into reusable devices. ASP has just qualified a new reprocessing protocol […]
Smart Manufacturing for COVID-19 Response: Interview with Amar Hanspal, Bright Machines CEO
Bright Machines, a smart manufacturing company based in San Francisco, offers automation solutions for assembly and inspection of dozens of products, including for the medical device industry. Medgadget recently featured an interview with Jesse Lehga of Diagnostics for the Real World, who have partnered with Bright Machines to produce point-of-care HIV diagnostic devices. Automating manufacturing […]
New Device to Disinfect 500 N95 Masks Per Hour
Prescientx, an Ontario, Canada firm, has just started taking orders for a device that can rapidly disinfect N95 masks using ultraviolet (UV) light. By bathing the masks with light in the UV-C range, the Terminator CoV device can process up to 500 masks per hour. This is quite spectacular, given the current shortage of masks, […]
Gold Nanoparticles Help Uncover Fine Structure of Amyloid Fibrils
A team of scientists, based at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) with collaborators at Ulm University in Germany, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, and MIT, have developed custom nanoparticles for high-resolution detection of amyloid fibrils, those associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinon’s. The newly developed technology enables researchers to investigate the […]
ProtectivAir Sterilizes Inhaled Air Using UV Light
Medi-Immune, a UK firm, recently revealed ProtectivAir, a breathing device that uses UVc light to sterilize inhaled air and protect wearers against airborne pathogens, potentially including SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). The device is meant to be used by healthcare staff and others with occupational exposure to airborne pathogens. ProtectivAir consists of a nose and mouth mask that […]
COVID Med Supply Makes Donating Personal Protective Equipment Easy
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is already running short at hospitals around the world dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic. However, there are dispersed stocks of face masks, shields, gloves, and other equipment that painters, dentists, demolition crews, and others may have on hand but are not sure how and where to donate them. Dr. Derek O’Keeffe […]