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[April 2007] Medical engineering can take many shapes and forms. Here as part of our newsletter series about young people in medical engineering, we illustrate three medical engineering projects that were created and run by postgraduate students at the Royal College of Art.

These projects were selected for inclusion in InnovationRCA's Selected Works programme, as exceptional products designed by RCA students and graduates that have the potential to successfully fill a gap in the marketplace. InnovationRCA is actively seeking to license these
products. Visit the RCA website for more information.
 

1. Tongue Sucker®, designed by Graeme Davies, Phillip Greer, Christopher Huntley and Lisa Stroux

Tongue Sucker is a simple-to-use device designed to hold the airway of an unconscious casualty open until paramedics arrive. It is non-invasive and can be used for adults or infants; and the design is such that an untrained bystander can clear the airway of one casualty and then move on to assist others without risk to the first casualty.

Tongue Sucker was developed by 2006 graduates Graeme Davies, Phillip Greer, Christopher Huntley and Lisa Stroux of the RCA’s Industrial Design Engineering programme. The team used 7/7 as a starting point to consider problems associated with mass casualty incidents. It became apparent from discussions with emergency services that any delay in the arrival of emergency services was critical. If a casualty's airway is not secured within five minutes of injury, the patient will die.

Further research revealed that more than a quarter of a million people are rendered unconscious in the UK each year. While unconscious, there is a great risk of suffocating on your own tongue due to the loss of muscle tone, which can result in brain damage or death. Paramedics are trained to high level to open the airway of the unconscious casualty safely, using specialist tools called Guedal airways. Untrained bystanders would not be qualified to use such tools.

The designers tested their new device under simulated emergency conditions to ensure that their user instructions were easy to follow by untrained bystanders. The team received positive feedback from all quarters, including Tony Luczak of St John’s Ambulance Brigade who commented: “There’s no doubt, this will save lives.”

Tongue Sucker has since gone on to win several awards including a Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award, the hotly contested £25,000 first prize in the 2006 New Business Challenge organised by Imperial College’s Tanaka Business School and the prestigious Red Dot communication design award. The design has also just been short listed for the 'Index' Awards and the 'Medical Futures' Awards.

The device will have to undergo clinical trials before it can be used as a first aid device but in its development the team have made significant progress in developing life saving equipment that can be put into the hands of untrained bystanders to save lives.

A patent has been filed and InnovationRCA is seeking potential licensees.


2. Sticksafe Hospital Tray, designed by Michael Korn
Stick Safe is a hospital tray that has been designed to radically reduce the risk of needle stick injury to medical workers. The device was developed by Michael Korn of RCA Industrial Design Engineering.

Needle stick injury, a common and dangerous problem for all users of medical needles, is the accidental jabbing of oneself or others with used, contaminated needles, which can lead to healthcare workers contracting blood-borne diseases e.g. HIV infection and hepatitis, from the patients they are treating. Needle stick injury is the second most commonly reported accident in the UK National Health Service (NHS) with around 100,000 cases reported annually. The costs to the NHS have been estimated to be greater than £ 300 million.

The conventional method to make a needle safe after use is to re-sheath the used needle, i.e. push it back into its protective plastic sheath. However, it is common for needle stick accidents during re-sheathing a contaminated needle since it is easy to miss the sheath and stab oneself and so this procedure has been banned by most UK National Health Service trusts. As such, used needles are carried around hospital wards on open trays and taken to sharps' bins where they are disposed of while still attached to syringes. The failure to separate needles from syringes has an impact on hospital disposal costs and yet the very process of separating needles from syringes and re-sheathing the needles often gives rise in itself to needle stick injury.

The Stick Safe hospital tray has been designed to allow one handed de-sheathing and re-sheathing of contaminated needles. It also allows the medical worker to separate a contaminated and sheathed needle from the syringe safely and thus also reduces hospital disposal costs.

Stick Safe is an easy to manufacture, low cost solution to a global problem that is not limited to health workers but to anyone who uses needles, e.g. diabetes sufferers or their carers. A patent has been filed and InnovationRCA is seeking potential licensees.

The StickSafe hospital tray was recognised by and received an honourable mention from the International Sharps Injury Prevention Awards 2006. The design has also just been short listed for the 'Index' Awards and the 'Medical Futures' Awards.

3. Resus:station: redesign of the resuscitation trolley, by Sally Halls and Jonathan West
When patients suffer a cardiac arrest, the arrival of a well-designed and well-stocked ‘crash trolley’ is literally a matter of life or death. This project takes a systems design approach to rethinking a vital piece of medical kit.


The resuscitation trolley is a familiar piece of mobile storage equipment on most hospital wards. Carrying defibrillators, drugs, airway equipment and more to the patient’s side, it is the traditional centrepiece of the process of resuscitation following cardiac arrest, a process that is highly dependent upon time-sensitive procedures. However, the crash trolley has some basic flaws; the variable design of this non-standardised ‘tool chest on wheels,’ and its poorly maintained or inaccessible equipment stock contribute to low survival rates.

Rather than simply improving a standalone piece of industrial equipment, the researchers, Sally Halls and Jonathan West decided to evaluate the entire process from actual use, to storage and restocking. Input from experts, users and clinicians, and time spent on the hospital ward observing real and simulated scenarios gave the designers a creative understanding of the processes involved and the problems that currently occur. The physical characteristics of this prototype allow a resuscitation team better access to vital equipment during use. The design also has far-reaching procedural implications as it logs the team’s actions during each resuscitation attempt. Finally, the trolley also affords an instant display of its readiness for use by recording the removal and replacement of each item. The project is now set for further development and testing.

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