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Cheap, 3D-Printed Stethoscope Challenges Top-of-the-Line Model
mask.of.sanity writes: Tarek Loubani, an emergency physician working in the Gaza strip, has 3D-printed a 30-cent stethoscope that beats the world's best $200 equivalent as part of a project to bottom-out the cost of medical devices. Loubani together with a team of medical and technology specialists designed the stethoscope and tested it against global standard benchmarks, finding it out performed the gold-standard Littmann Cardiology 3. They now intend to make a range of ultra-low cost medical devices for the developing world.
It cost about US$10,000 to develop, and has been released as an open source model for anyone to use. Loubani says the project is following the footsteps of the free software movement and aims to replace expensive proprietary solutions. He hopes that within 25 years the devices will be common-place in the Third World, and be the "Apache of the medical world."
It cost about US$10,000 to develop, and has been released as an open source model for anyone to use. Loubani says the project is following the footsteps of the free software movement and aims to replace expensive proprietary solutions. He hopes that within 25 years the devices will be common-place in the Third World, and be the "Apache of the medical world."
Just so you know.. those devices are unreliable unless calculated weekly.
Two doctor visits ago, I showed a 175/110. I panicked... they panicked. They got a stethoscope and I was 122/78.
Last doctor visit, they were no longer using the electronic devices and had gone back to stethoscopes.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Just so you know.. those devices are unreliable unless calculated weekly.
Two doctor visits ago, I showed a 175/110. I panicked... they panicked. They got a stethoscope and I was 122/78.
Last doctor visit, they were no longer using the electronic devices and had gone back to stethoscopes.
Wow, where do I begin. First of all, you mean "calibrated," not calculated. Also, stethoscopes are not used to check blood pressure, sphygmomanometers are.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
You need the stethoscope to detect the return of blood flow in the artery - the sphygmanometer is used to apply measurable pressure to your arm to occlude the flow of blood, you use the stethoscope to listen for the turbulent flow.
And they don't need calibrating, because the numbers in blood pressure measurements are "millimetres of mercury" - and that's literally what these instruments use (they're a glass tube with a suspended mercury column attached to the arm cuff).
They're much more accurate, reliable, and fast than using the robot version which repeatedly inflates and deflates the cuff and has a sensor attached to the bladder which detects your pulse. As a bonus they're also much less uncomfortable and distressing to the patient (because you can do the reading much more quickly and not cut off the flow of blood in their arm for a minute or so...) and thus give less false positives of high pressure because of stress....
3d printing in plastic _will_ always produce worse parts than injection molding. If you don't understand this, you aren't qualified to speak.
Probably won't ever be better. But I've learned never to say never. No one would ever need more than 640K of Ram, and we've already discovered everything.
BUT!. Whoosh for maximum whooshes. You chose a throwaway comment to get wrapped around the axle with.
My point(s) as clear as I can make them :
1.The incredibly cheap prices of injection molding are related to how many of them you make. Economy of scale.
2.The setup cost is not inexpensive.
3. While a 3-D printer does not have the economies of scale of the injection molding, it does not have the setup cost.
4. The 3-D printer will be in the hands of the person needing to make the parts, and either making parts to a plan already designed, or can even design new custom one off things as needed.
And think beyond a stethoscope. There are a lot of different parts, many of them one-off, that are needed in the medical profession.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.