2005-08-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

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Brief : Design a disposable syringe which can not be re-used and shall eliminate accidental infectious pricks to healthcare workers WITHOUT increasing RMC(raw material cost).

In India there is a major trend of hospital waste being collected and instead of being disposed of they are sold to clandestine units which clean and repackage disposable syringes. It is estimated that one third of all disposable syringes in India are repackaged and reused. This generally happens in rural areas and a lot of public mass immunization campaigns are done with reused disposable syringes.
Needless to say there is a 90% chance of getting deadly infectious diseases through this route.
Deadly viruses like hepatitis B,hepatitis C and HIV have spread rapidly over the past few decades and experts say contaminated syringes play a major role in their transmission.

Estimated total annual infections from syringe reuse: Hepatitis B: 8.3 million Hepatitis C: 1.3 million HIV: 31,000
Estimated annual death rate:1.4 million to 1.8 million
India :::::::::::::::::::
Nearly one-third of all injections are believed to be with disposable syringes picked from hospital waste bins or garbage dumps, re-packaged and resold.
Infections from syringe reuse:
Hepatitis B: 1.88 mil.
Hepatitis C: 256,100
HIV: 1,500

Scenario Building: -----------------------------------------
User Environment: The normal disposable syringe is used everywhere. Where ever there is need to inject something into a human body plastic disposable syringes are used.
Typical situations of use:
Hospital Environment ------- Nursing homes
pathological clinics
Dispensary

Mass Immunizations-------- Rural areas
Urban, Semi urban
Free Health Camps

Home Users --------------- Diabetic patients
Dialysis patients/Insulin
Drug Addicts

Task Analysis: Points in drug delivery where toxic pathogens and diseases could enter the system
1>Before the patient comes to the doctors clinic
2>doctor opens the needle blister pac
3>accidental prick
4>cotton on which spirit is administered
5>cleaning the patients arm with spirit
6>piercing needle through rubber stopper
7>medication itself might be contaminated
8>doctor pricks himself/herself after injecting the patient thereby putting risk of transmitting patients diseases
9>after injection the syringe is thrown into dustbin presumably to be disposed by the municipal corporation. Highest point where these syringes can be reused as they are not destroyed immediately after drug delivery. They can be repackaged and resold.
10>syringes can transmit diseases to ragpickers through accidental handling and stepping
on exposed needles.
Points to consider -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since at the disposal level nothing can be done
as it involves system level then the only option
left is to make the hypodermic syringes self
destruct after a single use.
The proposed new self destruct syringe should
be able to incorporate these features:
1>eliminate reuse completely
2>eliminate needle contamination
3>eliminate accidental needle stick injuries
( to healthcare workers and to ragpickers)
4>provide safety features for accidental jabbing
5>provide visual marker that it has been used.

BLOOD PEN Concept ----------------------->>
The blood pen is a single handed syringe which is used for drawing blood.This is for novice users and will be a single click operation.It will come from the factory with the spring compressed. The user just needs to insert the needle in the vein and press the button for drawing blood. This eliminates jerky movements of a two handed operation.

CAPSULE concept : ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Medication comes in small thin plastic
capsules at requisite dosages.The capsule
has a needle attached to it. The give the
dose the needle is opened bya bisleri type
break away seal. Then the capsule is kept in
the syringe and then injected. After use the
capsule is pulled out and thrown away and
the syringe is ready for the next dosage .

Thread concept: --------------------------------
Main problems of syringe reuse happens because it is easy to clean the syringe with water by using the plunger. This concept takes out the concept of a plunger altogether and will be used for blood extraction in pathological labs. There is a thread instead of a plunger and it is pulled back to draw blood from the vein.
After the required amount of blood is drawn the thread is pulled to the complete end where there is a soda can type lock. Pressing the lock lever with the finger breaks it and opens a hole where the blood can be poured out into the test tubes/glass bottles for later testing.
The syringe cant be reused as the lock cant be pulled back and out of the syringe.

Electric self sterilizing syringe concept :
Hospitals use reusable glass syringes but their cleaning procedure in an autoclave is not foolproof. Thus the concept of a self sterilizing syringe which is reusable. This instead of putting the control on the user puts the control on the machine. The barrel inside has a heater coil. After using the syringe the doctor cleans it normally with water and then pulls the plunger back completely which switches on the heater. The syringe heats up and kills the pathogens and then after it hs reached a desired temperature it automatically cools down because a thermocouple switches it off. After cooling down the doctor can use it again.

Bottle concept: Blood extraction ------------------------------------------------------------
There is a two way needle with a thread cap. There is also a bottle which will collect the blood and there is a vacuum syringe which draws out the air from the bottle. The process begins with the threading of the needle unit into the bottle cap the othe rend of which is attached to a syringe. There is a holder for gripping all the items and the needle is inserted into the vein and blood is extracted. The bottle becomes a blood collection bottle also and is used of pathological tests. The syringe doesn”t have blood so there is no excess consumption of plastic and the needle pack cant be reused and cleaned as the central part is blood stained due to ridges which serve as a visual marker of contamination.
FINAL CONCEPT : BREAK AWAY NEEDLE UNIT -------------------------------------------------
There are female flanges in the needle hub which will lock into the male flanges of the plunger when it is completely depressed. After this the syringe will be drawn out from the body and .Then a strong pull will break the needle and it will slide and lock inside the barrel which also has flanges at the top end. Thus no sharp objects are exposed and the syringe cannot be re-used.

Final Concept : -------------------------------
Section Models
Syringe plunger with flange lock at end.
Section models:
Model 1 (pink plunger and blue barrel. Shows the locking sequence when the plunger is pushed to the extremities. The pink flange lock on the plunger locks into the orange needle hub.

Model 2 Bottom: The locking process takes place and then just before the syringe is thrown into the dustbin the user pulls the plunger . The needle hub along with the plunger breaks from the barrel neck and then travels up the barrel to get locked into the barrel (white pipes are where the locks are located)
Thus there is no possibility of re-use and the syringe also prevents potentially hazardous and infectious pricks from the infected needles to the handlers like ragpickers, medical personnel etc.

Surfacelab :: Auto-Disable syringe