Home Medical Equipment is Highly Being Adopted in U.S. – Explore Why?

The modern technological advancements and facilities have made people welcome medical equipment to home. Most common home medical equipment include glucometer, automated external defibrillators, blood glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, halter monitors, mobility devices, weighing scale and so on. These equipment can provide safe, convenient, cost-effective, and suitable treatments to patients at home.

Access to Medicines and Medical Equipment during COVID-19: Searching Compatibility between the WTO and the WHO

Affordable access to medicines is a key determinant of a country’s resilience to health crises. The modern hyper-connected international trade and production networks have a vital role to play in ensuring this accessibility, especially in the context of a pandemic. This article focuses on the medicines and medical equipment and analyses the synergistic role of the two international organisations—The World Trade Organisation (WTO) and The World Health Organisation (WHO), in assuring affordable access to these goods globally. WHO is responsible for global healthcare regulations; however, the medical supply chain originates in a few developed countries, manufactured in bulk (in case of medicine) at low cost in developing countries, and finally traded worldwide. Here, the role of WTO comes—it facilitates global trade cooperation and intellectual property rights monitoring, both key elements in medical goods production and trading. Despite the need for cooperation in mitigating COVID-19, much of the global response to COVID-19 has been fragmented and inward-looking. This lack of coordination has serious repercussions especially for developing countries. We use qualitative content analysis methodology, connecting concepts of cooperation theory and global governance, to identify the joint role of the two organisations in fostering global cooperation in medical goods accessibility.

EFFECT OF ETHYLENE OXIDE STERILIZATION ON PLASTISIZER MIGRATION AND MECHANICAL AND BLOOD PROPERTIES OF MEDICAL GRADE POLYVINYLE CHOLORIDE

The use of phthalates as a plasticizer in plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) always poses the threat of migration of phthalates into the environment through medical equipment. Phthalates can be used with natural-based plasticizers, such as Epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) known as phthalate’s scavenger and PVC stabilizers. PVC formulations were characterized by different combinations of di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) 30-40% with 5% ESBO. PVC flexibility increased significantly in the presence of ESBO, without a change in strength (tensile test). The decrease of the Tg temperature by adding ESBO in Differential Scanning Calorimetry indicated that ESBO preserved DEHP in the polymer. Also, it was shown that the sterilization process with Ethylene Oxide, similar to ESBO, decreased the Tg of polymer. DEHP migration was evaluated at a maximum level to the environment using the Gas Chromatography test. Samples containing ESBO showed less hemolysis. ABSTRAK: Penggunaan phthalates sebagai plasticizer dalam plastik polyvinyl chloride (PVC) selalu menimbulkan ancaman penghijrahan phthalates ke alam sekitar melalui peralatan perubatan. Phthalates boleh digunakan dengan plasticizer berasaskan semula jadi, seperti minyak kacang soya Epoxidized (ESBO) yang dikenali sebagai pemulung phthalate dan penstabil PVC. Formulasi PVC dicirikan oleh kombinasi yang berbeza di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) 30-40% dengan 5% ESBO. Fleksibiliti PVC meningkat dengan ketara di hadapan ESBO, tanpa perubahan kekuatan (ujian tegangan). Penurunan suhu Tg dengan menambahkan ESBO dalam Calorimetri Pengimbasan Berbeza menunjukkan bahawa ESBO mengekalkan DEHP dalam polimer. Juga, ditunjukkan bahawa proses pensterilan dengan Etilena Oksida, serupa dengan ESBO, menurunkan Tg polimer. Penghijrahan DEHP dinilai pada tahap maksimum ke lingkungan menggunakan uji Kromatografi Gas. Sampel yang mengandungi ESBO menunjukkan kurang hemolisis.

Patient-Telemonitoring After Revascularization Procedures in the Lower Extremities

Multidisciplinary cooperation of participating healthcare professionals, use of common standards in diagnostics, and clinical pathways in the treatment of vascular patients should provide for a higher-quality clinical practice. Using telemedicine, a more efficient way of obtaining specialist treatment is achievable. However, its introduction may raise safety and security issues, which originate from its enabling information technology. In this chapter, a model of patient-telemonitoring after revascularization procedures in the lower extremities is presented. A protocol for proper authentication and authorization to access medical equipment and patient medical records has been introduced. The associated clinical study has shown that most post-operative follow-up examinations can successfully be performed by trained nurses. Hence, improvements to healthcare logistics, mainly due to shortening waiting times for specialist treatment and the reduction of follow-up examinations on the secondary healthcare level, can be achieved using telemedicine.

The importance of timely diagnosis and replacement of medical equipment in healthcare institutions

The health care system around the world, both in developed and developing countries, is struggling with the problem of managing the provision of health care in conditions of limited resources. The availability and use of various medical equipment at all levels of the healthcare system were emphasized for the efficient and high-quality provision of services. The main purpose of this review article is to assess the availability and use of medical devices and identify the registered causes affecting the availability and use of medical devices in healthcare institutions.

運用藍牙定位科技提升某病房醫材設備點班之效率

<p>本專案目的為運用藍牙定位系統追蹤儀器提升病房護理人員點班管理之效率。專案過程利用規劃重整器械放置處、建置藍牙定位追蹤儀器系統、規範醫材設備點班管理辦法等材料與方法，點班時間可由28.7分鐘縮短為14.7分鐘，將精實的時間回歸於臨床工作上，進而使病人獲得更完善的照護品質。</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p>This study aimed to increase the efficiency of equipment counting by nurses by using a Bluetooth positioning system to track instruments. Counting medical equipment is often time-consuming; the proposed solution involves reorganizing equipment placement locations, constructing a Bluetooth positioning system to track the instruments, and developing a standardized operating procedure for equipment counting. After the plan was implemented, the time required for the nurses to count medical equipment was reduced from an average of 28.7 to 14.7 minutes, reflecting a substantial increase in efficiency. Consequently, the nurses had more time for clinical work, resulting in a higher quality of patient care.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

Pelatihan penggunaan aplikasi Inventaris Gudang Puskesmas Sakra

An inventory system is a system that manages data on items owned by an office. A good inventory system will help a company manage data on goods owned by the company. Not only do big companies need an inventory system, but small offices also need an inventory system. Likewise, with the Health Center, managing data such as drugs, medical equipment, stationery, etc., requires a good warehouse inventory system. Therefore, this service activity aims to develop and train the Health Center Warehouse Inventory application. The partner of this activity is the Sakra Community Health Center (administrative staff). The methods used are lectures, mentoring, and direct practice using applications. The result of this activity is the production of warehouse inventory system software for the Sakra Health Center. In addition, the Sakra Health Center's administrative staff can also run the software

The Effectivity of Solid Medical Waste Management in Pandemic Era

Introduction: The increasing of confirmed positive case of SARS-Cov-2 Virus impacts to the need for improvement of health services, especially to the health workers and medical equipment. Along with the importance of regarding need of health service, it causes the rise number of medical waste that leads to health problem crisis. Therefore, this article presents common insight of the effectivity and challenge of medical waste management in Covid-19 pandemic.Methods: The notion is gained by finding out the source database from Pubmed, ScienceDirect, Google scholar, Researchgate that classified based on the research purpose. The keywords used were: (1) Covid-19 and medical waste; (2) pandemic solid waste; (3) waste and Covid-19; (4) management and pandemics.Results: An effective method to be applied is sterilizer technology, such as VH2O2 dan Stryker STERIZONE VP4, and the development of late waste respirator with the pyrolysis process. The method and the management process is considered, either nationally or internationally, as effective, but still we found challenge to implement the method, as lack of socialisation and support from the functionary. Conclusion: the method management can be implemented in the various countries, based on the needs and capability.

Evaluation of the Operation Process of Medical Equipment to Enhance Ergonomic Reliability Based on FRAM–Moran’s I and CREAM

To improve the ergonomic reliability of medical equipment design during the operation process, a method for evaluating the operating procedure of a medical equipment interface according to functional resonance analysis method (FRAM)-Moran’s I and cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM) is proposed in this study. The novelty of this research is to analyze the ergonomic reliability of medical equipment in a more systematic manner and to minimize the impact of human subjectivity and individual differences on the evaluation results of the operation process. To solve the calculation problem of functional resonance in FRAM and to make the evaluation results more objective, Moran’s I was introduced to quantify the deviation degree caused by the individual differences of the subjects. By giving weights based on Moran’s I, the influence of individual differences and subjectivity on the evaluation results can be minimized, to a certain extent. Considering the importance of a special environment, which is not fully considered by the conventional CREAM, the weighting values based on Moran’s I, Delphi survey, and technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) were adopted to assign weights to common performance conditions (CPCs) in CREAM. The optimal design scheme was selected more objectively than in the conventional method. The validity and practicability of this operation process evaluation method was verified by a statistical method based on ergonomic reliability experiments.

Method of Medical Equipment Evaluation and Preparation for On-Demand Additive Manufacturing with the Conventional Supply Chain Being Broken: A Case Study of Mask Filter Adapter Production during COVID-19

A year after the first cases, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to put immense pressure on healthcare systems worldwide. With supply chains broken, the only opportunity for hospitals was to turn to unconventional solutions to overcome medical equipment shortages in the shortest possible time. This paper describes the methodology that allows the preparation of medical equipment to be additionally manufactured in keeping with medical requirements. The proposed method focuses on cytotoxicity tests against HaCaT, L929, A549 cell lines, and the assessment of potential antimicrobial properties of materials. The application of the proposed method is shown by the example of an adapter that connects a full mask with widely available DAR filters. The prototyping and fabrication of adapters were conducted with the fused deposition modelling (FDM) and selective laser sintering (SLS) technologies. The adapters increased the number of masks available to medical personnel, and by the same token, ensured the continuity of their work.