Medical equipment is vital in quality and effective healthcare delivery. They provide critical support from diagnosis to final medication. Without medical equipment, precision diagnostics and treatment may be a challenge. Revolutionary medical equipment can also lower the cost of healthcare.
For example, a cancer diagnosis is supported by many pieces of equipment like, MRI, CT, PET, UltraSound machines, etc. Hospitals use radiation therapy machines like linear accelerators and orthovoltage x-ray units for cancer treatment.
Therefore, the manufacture of medical equipment must be under meticulous quality control and robust testing to meet medical industry standards.
In this article, you will learn about some medical equipment worth exploring in the medical industry.
1. Silicone Rubber Heaters
Silicone rubber heaters are vital heating elements with better heat transfer capabilities for speeding warm-ups. They are found on medical shapers, slimming belts, and laboratory equipment like test tube heaters. Other industrial uses in other sectors include telecom cabinet heater enclosures.
These elements are moldable to your desired shapes to achieve your goals. They can accommodate as high as 200°C (392°F). Furthermore, they are lightweight and thin, making them common across many sectors like the military, medical laboratory, etc.
They are very efficient with low energy consumption. Hi-Heat Industries states that the versatility of silicone rubber heaters makes their heat application almost infinite, unless your imagination limits you. That’s the benefit of custom flexible heaters.
2. Blood Analyzers
Blood analyzers are highly specialized lab equipment for evaluating blood sample elements like the amount of each blood cell and hemoglobin. In short, you cannot precisely diagnose certain blood disorders like sickle cell disease, leukemia, etc., without these incredible tools.
They use heaters like the polyimide heating film or Kapton heaters to maintain the temperature of blood samples. The Kapton heaters are so thin and offer accurate, customized heat distribution. Hence, they prevent the blood sample coagulation by uniform heating in the blood analyzers.
3. Thermocouples
Medical grade thermocouples are helpful in the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Also, you can use them to take tissue temperature during irregular heart rhythms (cardiac arrhythmias).
The device consists of bifilar and multi-filar wires made from thermocouple alloy. They contain a surface layer of the polyimide heater film layer to facilitate thermo-electric operations. It is critical in evaluating and managing health conditions like arrhythmias.
4. Incubators
Incubators are controlled environments for the optimum operation of specific tasks like hypothermia prevention in babies. It has other uses like lab research, quality control, etc. In lab research, for example, you can use an incubator tissue culture cultivation.
You can control light, humidity, and temperature to get the optimum incubator conditions for your task. Incubators use a thermostat and hygrometer to control the temperature and humidity, respectively.
5. Flexible Printed Heaters
The flexible printed heaters are warming elements attached to a stretchable material. It has several applications:
- Keeping the temperature of surgical tools at a recommended level in the operation room.
- Accelerating wound or injury recovery by precise targeting using warming.
- Boosting warmth of hospital blankets.
They can be made of different materials based on the manufacturer specifications:
- Polyester heater
- Kapton heater/polyimide heater
- Thermoplastic polyurethane
The materials are flexible substrates that make it easy to wrap heating elements. Depending on their rechargeable battery’s durability, they can last 1-8 hours.
6. Surgical Tool Assembly
Surgical tools have evolved from branding iron to electrocautery. Modern electrothermal surgical tool assemblies have shown incredible efficacy in hemostasis therapy. They can safely and effectively control very high-risk bleeding or hemorrhage, including adherent clots.
Most endoscopic hemostasis techniques like contact thermal coagulation use thermal devices to control bleeding. The current electrothermal devices have unique flexible heaters and integrated circuitry to simultaneously handle power and signal.
These devices help improve efficiency and safety in surgical operating rooms.
7. Humidity Chambers
Humidity chambers are machines that allow the testing of products or samples at various humidity and temperature conditions. It is a way of determining a product or sample tolerance in the harshest conditions.
In a medical setting, you can use humidity chambers to evaluate a specimen’s reaction to variation of moisture for a specific duration. For example, you can use this to determine the best optimum condition for drug storage in pharmaceuticals.
Other sectors use humidity chambers, too, for evaluating product’s weather tolerance, e.g., paper or circuit board in paper and electronic industry.
Humidity chambers contain these core components:
- Compressed air inlet
- Humidity generator
- Silicone heater pad
- Test samples
Compressed air and humidity are for cooling, while a silicone heater pad controls the temperature. You can gauge the test sample’s environmental tolerance levels by adjusting the conditions.
8. Test Tube Heaters
Test tube heaters are versatile devices that heat samples automatically. Also, it holds the samples for the time duration set for the countdown. It will beep when its countdown is over.
The test tube heater will provide uniform heat and maintain it to all test tubes it holds. But, you must ensure that the tubes have the exact calibration to achieve accurate uniform heating. In the medical setting, they are used for lab purposes to test samples.
9. Polyester Heaters
Polyester heaters, like Kapton heaters, are applied to manufacture other precision equipment and devices. It is moisture-resistant and has low energy consumption. Also, you can heat curved and flat surfaces with it.
Polyester can customize a heater for adhesive backing, control instrumentation, insulation, etc. The polyester heater is best for low heat transfer applications like keeping ingredients at a specific temperature.
Take Away
Medical devices and equipment help drive safer, effective, and affordable healthcare delivery. They are at the core of prevention, diagnosis, and medication techniques.
For example, respirators can help prevent respiratory hazards like harmful gas or toxic air. Scanning machines like MRI, CT, Ultrasound, etc., help cancer diagnosis. Treatment devices like flexible printed heaters can help in wound recovery.
But, this critical medical equipment depends on individual components made by other companies; for example, OEMs rely on companies like Hi-Heat Industries to get custom-designed flexible heaters for various heating applications. The applications include making of humidity chambers, electrothermal surgical tools, etc.
So, the OEM suppliers also adhere to safety and quality standards in the medical industry and others they serve.