New technology for hospital-manufactured orthoses and prostheses
Royal Melbourne Hospital
2019 | Semester 1
The challenge
The Royal Melbourne Hospital ran two projects concurrently focused on reducing the cost, or increasing the ease, of disposing of materials from prosthesis manufacture.
The hospital manufactures prostheses and orthoses for its patients, but the technology it used to do so had not changed significantly in decades. However, many new technologies could be deployed (3D printing is an obvious example). The hospital wanted to innovate its internal process for manufacturing devices.
The team’s task was to propose one way in which the hospital might innovate its prosthesis/orthosis specification, manufacturing, and/or delivery process, preferably using some kind of new technologies. The proposal also needed to consider the cultural and operational imperatives of the hospital, and the changes required to support the hospital and its personnel through implementation.
Outcomes
The two teams came up with very different solutions for this challenge, both being progressed in different ways.
1. Through their interviews with hospital staff, the first team realised that the hospital had a large quantity of old prostheses sitting in warehouse storage. As a result of this project, these prostheses are now being sent to Africa through a targeted charity.
2. The second group proposed the hospital amend its prostheses fitting processes to scan the stump, 3D print the socket and build prostheses based on the scanned socket. This process has the potential to save significant amounts of material (and money). The hospital has progressed this project with the university, with a team of students from Master of IT set to build the prototype under the guidance of Dr Tilman Dingler.