Surgical equipment for safe surgery worldwide
Themes: Life Science & Health, Social Impact
Early prototype
A TRL is a measure to indicate the matureness of a developing technology. When an innovative idea is discovered it is often not directly suitable for application. Usually such novel idea is subjected to further experimentation, testing and prototyping before it can be implemented. The image below shows how to read TRL’s to categorise the innovative ideas.
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Why?
In order to increase worldwide access to safe surgery, we develop basic surgical equipment for low- and middle-income countries. This could for example introduce minimally invasive surgery there, which reduces recovery times and chances on infections.
How?
We aim to make equipment cheaper and easier to, or less needy of, repair by using locally available components, or by using standardised (e.g. USB cameras and smart phones) instead of brand-specific components.
When?
Our first devices are a video laryngoscope used for general anaesthetics and a laparoscope used for minimally invasive surgery. The devices are expected to be ready for clinical validation in 4 years.
Roos Oosting MSc