With the increase in demand for Personal Protective Equipment as well as other medical supplies, especially for the frontline workers who risk their lives every day during this pandemic period, many well-meaning innovators around the world have taken this up as an opportunity to help out by making this equipment readily available. These include nasal swabs, 3D-printed face shields, ventilator machines as well as open-source oxygen concentrator.
However, despite the many designs of protective gear out there, few meet the minimum safety standards required. To address this problem, a group was formed collectively known as CASMS (Collaborating to Address Shortages of Medical Supplies). The group was created by Mike Dempsey, who is also the Director of the CIMIT Accelerator Program. CASMS group comprises of individuals from CIMIT and was formed with the intention of making sure that basic standards were being met in the creation of medical supplies. That way, both safety as well speed could be achieved.
Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology (“CIMIT”) is made up of experts from the medicine, business and academia fields. The team inspects the existing equipment’s specifications and tests protocols for the medical devices/supply at hand.
For instance, a face shield’s specifications may be detailed and may encompass features that may not be useful for the Coronavirus crisis but can be applicable for other tasks like welding. What the CASMS team does is it pares down the features that are not useful in order to make the equipment more suitable for use in the pandemic. This eliminates the need for specialized or costly equipment.
As there are already so many designs in existence in the market, even with CASMS working to ensure equipment safety, Dempsey calls for the need to emphasize more on testing and safety of the equipment instead of the equipment design.
Despite the pandemic being the main focus of the CASMS for the immediate future, Dempsey has some thoughts on CASMS’ future for the long-term. As he has worked with destitute countries before as well as countries with struggling economies, he notes that they experience shortages of medical supplies.
So, to help the middle income and low income countries manage their persistent medical supply shortages, he intends to keep CASMS running after the coronavirus pandemic ends in order to provide these economies with new equipment that is affordable as well as safe.
Analysts say that this innovative way of looking at problems is exactly what has propelled biomedical companies like LexaGene Holdings Inc. (TSX.V: LXG) (OTCQB: LXXGF) to be market leaders today.
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