Frugal and biomedical engineering for low-resource settings - Engineering Design - Healthcare Technologies

医疗器械市场正在持续增长，增速高于相关的药理学和生物技术领域。在2010-2019年的10年里，欧洲专利局每年授予的Medtech专利数量翻了一番。目前，全球MD市场份额的85%以上为中、高收入国家(美国、欧洲、中国、日本、加拿大)所有，其中美国和欧洲占70%。这些国家制定了事实上的标准，在低资源环境(LRS)不能想当然。当在LRS中使用按照这些标准设计的MD(即，足以用于高资源设置)时，其安全性和有效性受到阻碍，因为设备的操作环境得不到保证。因此，患者和使用者的安全可能会受到严重损害。此外，截至目前，医疗器械行业在可持续性及其对陆地环境和生活的影响方面落后于其他行业(例如汽车行业)。该项目将建立在以前创建的框架基础上，用于评估LRS中的医疗地点以及对这些环境具有弹性的医疗器械的设计。它的目的是进一步调查如何使用一种切合实际的节俭的工程方法，以及mHealth、eHealth、3D打印和ProtoCycle来克服一些主要挑战。该项目将从扩展现有的廉价医疗设备概念开始，例如用于筛查糖尿病神经疾病的智能手机应用程序，以使它们达到更高的准备水平。该项目还为进一步的案例研究留有空间，这些案例研究可以由候选人提出或与其讨论。最后，这个项目还将着眼于如何通过节俭的工程方法使医疗器械行业更可持续

The medical device market is continuously growing, at higher rates than the related fields of pharmacological and biotechnologies. In 10 years, 2010-2019, the number of Medtech patents granted each year by the European Patent Office doubled. Currently, over 85% of the world MD market share is owned by upper middle- and high-income countries (US, Europe, China, Japan, and Canada), with the US and Europe accounting for 70%. These countries set de facto standards that cannot be taken for granted in low-resource settings (LRSs). When MDs designed following these standards, i.e., adequate for high-resource settings, are used in LRSs, their safety and effectiveness is hindered, because the operating context of the device is not guaranteed. Therefore, patients and users' safety can be seriously compromised. In addition to this, as of now, the medical device industry is lagging behind others (e.g., automotive) in terms of sustainability and its impact on the environment and life on land.This project will build on previously created frameworks for the assessment of medical locations in LRSs as well as the design of medical devices resilient to these settings. It will aim to further investigate how a contextualised and frugal engineering approach, along with mHealth, eHealth, 3D printing and protocycling can be used to overcome some of the major challenges. The project will start off by expanding already existing frugal medical device concepts, such as a smartphone app for screening for diabetic neuropathies, to bring them to higher readiness levels. The project also has room for further case studies that can be proposed by or discussed with the candidate. Finally, this project will also be looking at how the medical device sector could be made more sustainable also with a frugal engineering approach