Improvements

[likeachild]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

Hey guys,

I'm a undergraduate studying biomedical engineering. As part of a design project, I am looking for problems, inefficiencies, or simply inconveniences in med school, hospitals, clinics, and technology.

Are there any processes, procedures, pieces of equipment that you have found to be overly complicated or difficult?

Is there any type of device that you wish existed that could make your life easier? Or any problems with current devices?

(for example, many features have been added to the stethoscope, such as tunable diaphragm, amplification, and ambient noise isolation because it was probably annoying to not be able to hear clearly different environments (ER), etc.)

 

[TexasTriathlete]

Make a device where I can know everything without studying.

 

[rachmoninov3]

make a completely wireless continuous EKG. If you can do this, not only will you make $$$$$$$$ but help the poor patients too.
I hate seeing people tied down by their equipment, or woken up in the middle of the night b/c they rolled over and a wire popped off the daisy (electrode) it was attached to.

 

[likeachild]

Make a device where I can know everything without studying.

Well short of implanting memory chips and a brain computer interface,
there is not much that we can do right now.

However, I would recommend a program called Mnemosyne. It's helped me to retain and learn information in a much more efficient manner.

http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/

 

[likeachild]

make a completely wireless continuous EKG. If you can do this, not only will you make $$$$$$$$ but help the poor patients too.
I hate seeing people tied down by their equipment, or woken up in the middle of the night b/c they rolled over and a wire popped off the daisy (electrode) it was attached to.

How would this help poor patients specifically?

Thanks for the idea.

 

[montessori2md]

We need more devices to help people control their caloric intake. I'm thinking some sort of dental implant the locks your jaw shut after you've sent more than your allotted quantity past your lips.
😀

Seriously, most of my irritation and problems in clinic have been data related. There is a company that markets USB drives for patient records (starting at 19.99/month). In my dream universe, everyone wears one of those around their neck, and you can also access them online if you have the appropriate clearance and the patient's ID. That way, if your patient passes out at Walmart, all alone and w/o ID, EMS can get their records from the stick. If your patient loses/forgets his stick, you can access them online.

Then, when he tells you some bizarre story that makes no sense, you can look at his records and hope to figure it out. It should also be organized so that important patterns are highlighted, and ideally it would be searchable by keyword and date.

 

[likeachild]

We need more devices to help people control their caloric intake. I'm thinking some sort of dental implant the locks your jaw shut after you've sent more than your allotted quantity past your lips.
😀

Or some sort of tapeworm like device that eats your calories.

I once heard that personal health is 40% lifestyle, 30% genetics, 20% public health, 10% medical care. Managing caloric intake and encouraging exercise goes into the realm of social innovation.

Maybe some variation of the relay for life events that can be staged more often, and a nationwide marketing campaign to reinforce the image of being healthy.

Seriously, most of my irritation and problems in clinic have been data related.

Ah so patient records might be stored at another doctor's office, or they don't exist? I agree there needs to be a centralized database that is widely accessible to healthcare providers. Should insurers, hospitals, or patients (or some combination of the three) pay for maintenance and operation of the system?

 

[Rendar5]

How would this help poor patients specifically?

Thanks for the idea.

He didn't mean monetarily poor. He meant poor as in he feels sorry for the patients. Honestly it's not that bad an idea for telemetry units, and intensive care and EM units to have less cumbersome EKG monitors.

 

[likeachild]

He didn't mean monetarily poor. He meant poor as in he feels sorry for the patients. Honestly it's not that bad an idea for telemetry units, and intensive care and EM units to have less cumbersome EKG monitors.

The wireless idea is definitely a good one. I was thinking of using something shortrange like bluetooth, but will have to check on FCC regulations for medical devices.

Which type of EKG is used most commonly (3/5/12)?
and what other features besides wireless would be useful to a clinician?

(a screen that kept track of medication dosage, for example?)

 

[Rendar5]

The wireless idea is definitely a good one. I was thinking of using something shortrange like bluetooth, but will have to check on FCC regulations for medical devices.

Which type of EKG is used most commonly (3/5/12)?
and what other features besides wireless would be useful to a clinician?

(a screen that kept track of medication dosage, for example?)

The readouts are usually good in that they have the needed information on them. These are generally 3 lead EKGS as far as I've seen showing a single rhythm readout. But I think telemetry units might have more involved ones. I think the big isssue with wireless is that this will make patients more likely to walk away with the leads on. As is, patients really are not able to walk away with much more than the simple pads. The other issue is that cell phones might actually be able to affect wireless ones if they use bluetooth technology? And there will be cell phones on in those units whether we forbid them or not.

So I think the challenge here is that you need cheap replaceable wireless leads that can be lost on a semi-regular basis, and cannot have common stuff like cell phones interfere.

As for the different monitors ( and there are many different ones that measure different things), alarms aren't as easily programmable as they should, and it might be nice to have different sounding alarms for different issues (bradypnea would have a different sound than bradycardia). though that last idea isn't a huge lifesaver.

 

[DrJosephKim]

There are many opportunities to improve safety - especially as it relates to needle injuries, prescription errors, etc. If you're interested in the mechanical side, then look at surgical instruments, tools, and implantable devices. We've seen many recalls of heart devices. Why?

Otherwise, perhaps you can do something related to infectious diseases, nanotechnology, and antimicrobial resistance. Sounds like fun!