MEDIVATORS, a Cantel Medical company, won clearance from the FDA for its ADVANTAGE PLUS Pass-Thru Automated Endoscope Reprocessor. It works with all kinds of clinical scopes, including duodenoscopes, but what’s cool is that it is supposed to be fit into a wall so that anything passing from a “dirty” room to a “clean” r (Read more...)
Tag: Public Health
Spying on Your Social Media and Searches to Fight STDs
Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied whether certain search terms that are used on Google and topics covered on Twitter can point to a outbreak of a contagious disease. They focused on syphilis and found that by monitoring the incidence of certain terms, such as “STD&rdquo (Read more...)
Anti-Microbial Nanotechnology: Interview with Adrian Fellows, Head of R&D at AGA Nanotech
AGA Nanotech, a medtech company based in the UK, has developed nanotechnologies aimed at overcoming antimicrobial resistance, with a view to offering an alternative to conventional antibiotics. The company has collaborated with researchers from University College London to create poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles that can deliver h (Read more...)
Zipline’s New Medical Delivery Drones Fly Faster and Farther
Zipline, a drone company based in Half Moon Bay, California, is unveiling its fastest, longest range, and easiest to setup drone for medical deliveries. The company’s drones are already serving as couriers in Rwanda, delivering blood samples and blood units to and from 21 hospitals in the western part of the country. The new autonomous d (Read more...)
Sugar-Coated Nanosheets Can Selectively Bind Pathogens
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed sugar-coated ultrathin self-assembling nanosheets that can selectively bind to pathogens, and which have potential to serve as a diagnostic technology or a way to inactivate pathogens. The researchers developed the structures using bioinspired (Read more...)
LexaGene’s New LX6 Rapid Pathogen Detection System: Interview with CEO Dr. Jack Regan
With the ever-growing list of potentially harmful pathogens being discovered, the systems needed to detect different strains need to become more sophisticated as well. Enter LexaGene, a biotechnology company developing automated and sensitive solutions for efficient pathogen detection. LexaGene’s unique microfluidics approach to pathogen dete (Read more...)
Scal-Pal Makes Replacing Scalpel Blades a Snap
Scalpel blades are typically changed by exposing them from a package and handling them directly. Students at Georgia Tech have designed a simple device to make scalpel blade exchanges easier and safer. It works similar to automatic shaving blade dispensers, but applied to scalpel blades. To use the Scal pal, as the device is called, […]
Interview with Ori Geva, CEO of Medial EarlySign: A Healthcare Data Analytics Startup
Predictive analytics is the practice of learning from historical data in contemplation of making decisions about the future. Predictive analytics is not new to healthcare. However, in the past it has been limited by many factors, including data availability and accessibility. Over the last few years, the issue of data availability has been rectifie (Read more...)
Blockchain Technology for Transparent Drug Pricing: Interview with Cambridge Consultants
Frustration with the US pharmaceutical industry has been on the rise along with the steadily increasing out-of-pocket copays for prescriptions drugs. The news cycle has also been reporting more frequently on extreme overnight price hikes on, at times, life-saving drugs. Many people are suspecting foul play because drug price negotiations (Read more...)
PhoneSoap Med+ Cleans Smartphones, Tablets, Stethoscopes with UV
Considering that almost every person entering a hospital is carrying a smartphone, there’s constant worry that pathogens have an easy way to invade the very places they need to be kept out of the most. Now a new device is coming to market that was designed to quickly disinfect phones, tablets, and other small devices […]
Low-Cost 3D-Printed Stethoscope for Low-Resource Areas
Scientists at the University of Western Ontario, aka Western University, have developed a 3D-printed stethoscope. The device costs just $3 to produce and takes less than three hours to print, but maintains the acoustic quality of more expensive stethoscopes. The researchers hope that the device could be useful in low-resource settings, where medica (Read more...)
Drone Lifelines: Interview with Zipline’s Keenan Wyrobek
Keenan Wyrobek is the co-founder of Zipline, a California company designing, building, and deploying drones that deliver life-saving medical supplies and blood to the most remote and difficult to access places on Earth. He has a background in helping develop several tech products and patents in robotics, and is now leading product and engineer (Read more...)
Device Measures Stiffness of Tens of Thousands of Cells to Screen Drugs for Safety (Video)
Force cytometry, or measurement of strength of cells, can be a useful indicator for assessing how specific drugs affect cell function. Rapidly performing thousands of force cytometry tests can help speed up drug testing, particularly for compounds intended to treat blood pressure, stroke, muscular dystrophy, and asthma. Scientists at UCLA and Rutge (Read more...)
Amiko Respiro Inhaler Tracking System Cleared in Europe
Amiko Digital Health, a company based in London, UK, landed CE Mark approval for its Respiro sensors and accompany platform to be used with Teva’s Spiromax , Chiesi’s Nexthaler and GlaxoSmithKline’s Ellipta inhalers. The Respiro system records usage of an inhaler every time it’s accessed, passing that information in rea (Read more...)
QR Codes on Drugs to Thwart Counterfeits, Improve Compliance
Drugs are sometimes faked and sold in place of the real stuff, seriously hurting patients and causing them financial harm. Moreover, patients often take the wrong drugs or take them at the wrong time. What if each pill could be tagged by the manufacturer and confirmed by the patient of its authenticity and that it’s […]
QuickSee Autorefractor to Help Prescribe Glasses in Poor and Remote Areas
Eyeglasses have gotten pretty cheap over the decades, but the process of obtaining a prescription is still too expensive for many people around the world. One reason for the high cost of prescriptions is the expense, and size, of traditional autorefractors. These devices are bulky, and so can’t be easily transported between places lacking pro (Read more...)
Surgibox: a Portable Operating Room for Surgery Anywhere
A well equipped surgical team not only has a bunch of equipment, but also an operating theater to work in. There are charitable organizations traveling the world over providing free-of-charge surgeries, but their reach is limited because a proper OR is still a rarity in many places. A new device is being developed that wraps […]
Medgadget @ CES 2018: BACtrack View Breathalyzer for Watching Over Loved Ones
Breathalyzers used to only be thought of as devices the police use to stop drunk drivers. But thanks to miniaturization and integration with modern smartphones, breathalyzer technology can be used in novel ways. One interesting product we saw on our visit to CES 2018 in Las Vegas is the BACtrack View. This device allows individual […]
DIY In-Home Environmental Assessments with yogi by Live Pure, Interview with CEO Greg Sancoff
While consumers have long been able to buy a variety of tests for in-home assessment of environmental contaminants, a new company, Live Pure, is seeking to simplify the effort required to perform these assessments with yogi, an all-in-one test kit. The new product is designed to deliver peace of mind to consumers concerned about their […]
Timestrip Vaccine Indicator Reminder Helps Parents in Poorly Developed Places Stay on Immunization Schedule
In developing nations that lack proper medical systems, kids’ vaccinations are often forgotten about and therefore missed, leading to the development of bigger problems down the road. In more developed nations, parents receive regular reminders via a variety of means and compliance remains quite high outside the community of skeptics. To help (Read more...)