AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
medical machinery, healthcare, doctors
COUNTRY
Canada
DESIGNED BY
The Arbutus Medical team:
Florin Gheorghe BSc, CEO; co-founded $120k manufacturing social enterprise in Ghana; 1yr medical device consulting (EWB, SMIDO, Continuum).
Michael Cancilla MEng, CTO, >3yrs Medical device engineering design and process, project management (Verathon, VCH, Heath&Sherwood)
Lawrence Buchan MASc; 4yrs Mechanical design, orthopaedic research, leadership experience (UBC)
Elise Huisman PhD Candidate; MSc Biomedical Engineer, 6yrs Clinical research, 1yr global market medical device analyst (UBC, iData).
WEBSITE
http://www.drillcover.com/
The Drill Cover
The Drill Cover makes a hardware drill safe to use for broken bone surgery, in the developing world.
The drill cover is a sterilizable, reusable, waterproof, fully-sealed sterile barrier to enclose a non-sterile hardware power drill, to be used in a sterile surgical environment. Surgeons in the developing world zones cannot afford 30k+ surgical drills to repair broken bones. Instead they use manual drills that are inaccurate, time and labor intensive, or non-sterile hardware drills that have a high risk for disease transmission. Delays in surgery, due to long waits caused by lack of drills or long surgeries because of inappropriate equipment lead to delayed surgeries and often into life long disability. With a kit of one hardware drill and multiple covers, a surgeon can provide better outcomes than a manual drill, and perform back to back surgery as the cover can be removed after surgery and a new one can be used within minutes. The drill cover can be used in hospitals in the developing world or in disaster relief settings where aid organizations provide medical care.