Into to 3D Printing Healthcare Solutions

June 16, 2019 | ProgressTH

Here is a video introduction to our ongoing Medical Maker Initiative (MMI) using 3D printing to develop healthcare solutions for local hospitals and healthcare institutions.

This project has been ongoing since 2015. We would really like to see this expand to more hospitals and healthcare institutions as well as see hospitals bring 3D printing in house with their own designers to further save time and costs. 

Follow ProgressTH.org on Instagram here. We also put all of our 3D printed models online for free at Thingiverse.com here. 

Medical Maker Project Continues

January 17, 2017 | ProgressTH

Since mid-2015, we've been working with the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (QSNICH) based here in Bangkok to develop prototypes and working articles for nurses, technicians, and doctors to improve their workflow and overcome challenges they face in their day-to-day routines.

This year we aim to expand this program further, by organizing regular hackathons that pair hospital staff up with designers and engineers in one and two-day sessions to solve even more problems and reach out to more hospitals and medical institutes.

We also hope to encourage QSNICH and other hospitals to consider bringing fabrication in-house, with their own biomedical designer to work with staff on a day-to-day basis. While we have been able to cut down time by years and reduce costs significantly, in-house operations overseen directly by the hospital would speed things up even further.

To see what's been done so far, take a look at these 7 projects.

1. Dermatology Tool 

Children in the dermatology department were easily scared by existing tools used to take skin samples for diagnosing conditions.

The solution was a customized 3D printed plastic bladed tool created in a variety of colors and featuring different cartoon characters on the end of the handle.

3D Printing: Custom Ventilation for Air-Warmed Blanket

November 20, 2016 | ProgressTH As part of ProgressTH's collaboration with local children's hospital, Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (QSNICH), we were presented with a challenge in distributing warm air evenly through a custom made blanket used to warm babies during surgery.

The blanket consists of 3 evenly-sized pockets connected at one end through which warm air is introduced via a mechanical blower.

When the air is blown in, it moves directly through the middle pocket, bypassing the other 2 on either side. Creating a 3-way duct with plastic tubes of equal diameter also resulted in a similar phenomenon.

Producing even air flow into all three pockets required borrowing some ideas from interior ventilation systems. Recall how ventilation ducts differ in diameter, becoming smaller as they work their way deeper into a building's interior from fans conditioning and pushing air from a single starting point. The smaller diameter creates even pressure and equal distribution throughout the system, otherwise the air would simply move in the straightest, easiest path possible, bypassing vents along the way.

You can find more information, including diagrams, here at ventilation-systems.com.

3D Printing: Resting Hand Splint Could Save Hospital Hundreds of Dollars

November 17, 2016 | ProgressTH For children with certain conditions, hospitals will fit them with a resting hand splint. They must form to the child's hand very specifically for maximum comfort, must breath, and must be light.

Thermoplastic usually performs at least a few of these requirements well. However sheets of the plastic lack holes for ventilation. The other problem is, for Bangkok-based Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (QSNICH), reliable thermoplastic suppliers offer sheets that are very expensive, perhaps 4,000-5,000 THB (115-140 USD) a piece and might make between 5-10 splints each.

As an alternative, hospital staff began looking for alternatives and eventually contacted ProgressTH to explain the problem.

We started by tracing a volunteer's hand and 2/3 of their forearm on a piece of paper. We scanned it and imported the image into SketchUp.

3D Printing + Microscopy

September 13, 2016 | ProgressTH For over a year now ProgressTH has been collaborating with Bangkok-based Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (QSNICH) using 3D printing to prototype various solutions to problems nurses face on a day to day basis. We've created a cheap needle disposal system, a bed-leveling system, a blood clotting device, and a child-friendly dermatology tool.

When last we delivered the final iteration of the dermatology tool, we noticed microscopes in the dermatology department's lab.

Makers Meet Medicine at Local Children's Hospital

July 24, 2016 | ProgressTH Last week, we organized together with QSNICH (Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health), a presentation and workshop showcasing the now nearly year-long collaboration between several nurses and our Bangkok-based makerspace, ProgressTH.

A year ago, nurses from QSNICH, a national children's hospital, approached us to see if 3D printing could be used to develop healthcare solutions throughout their hospital.

Nurses, it turns out, are also skilled part-time makers, often improvising on the spot with materials on hand to solve problems as they present themselves. However, with 3D printing, it is possible to solve these problems in a more permanent and precise manner, and then replicate these solutions accurately to be used on a larger scale.

So we began taking the concepts nurses presented to us, including a bubble-level used to calibrate bed height in the ICU, a needle disposal system, a child-friendly dermatology tool, and a blood clotting device, and began 3D printing prototypes for testing throughout the hospital.

We went through several iterations with the nurses over several months, who would provide us feedback throughout each step of the process so we could develop better solutions.

3D Printing: Hospitals Collaborating with Makerspaces

June 18, 2016 | ProgressTH An upcoming workshop at Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health (QSNICH), a children's hospital located in Bangkok, Thailand, aims to empower nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals with the tools and techniques now common among the world's growing maker movement.

Prototypes of a 3D printed needle disposal system produced in larger numbers for testing throughout the hospital. 50 in total will be produced and tested before larger numbers are approved of for general use. 

The workshop aims to teach attendees specifically the basics of 3D design and 3D printing to give hospital staff a better understanding of what makerspaces can offer in terms of collaborating with hospitals in the field of rapid prototyping and innovation.

QSNICH staff are already working together with local makerspace ProgressTH on several projects involving the prototyping and testing of various healthcare-related devices. These include a low-cost needle disposal system, a dermatology tool designed specifically for children, a blood clotting device, and a bed-leveling system.