The adoption of 3D printed labs in hospitals and health systems has been a growing trend over the past few years. A recent webinar sponsored by Formlabs and moderated by Gaurav Manchanda, Director of Medical Market Development at Formlabs, highlighted the value of this technology from a clinical, commercial and regulatory perspective.
Todd Goldstein, director of 3D design and innovation at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, offers his personal experience of the value of 3D printing technology during the pandemic from a patient and provider perspective.
“Having a 3D printing lab in-house allows us to perform procedures that might not have been possible before without a specific cutting jig,” Goldstein said. “I didn’t know you could pay to save a patient’s limb or they would lose it.”
He noted that the lab enables health systems to directly print new types of medical devices in real-time, such as producing custom surgical trays and instrument connectors to utilize products from different medical device manufacturers in a single complex procedure.
Goldstein also noted that by working with the FDA and working with USF Health and Formlabs, Northwell was able to design, develop and clinically validate a 3D swab for Covid-19 testing in a matter of weeks. More than 80 million of these novel NP swabs have been deployed and used globally. Additionally, when ventilators were in short supply, Goldstein and his team worked with the FDA to use its 3D printers to create adapters that would convert BiPAP machines into ventilators and use them safely on nearly 500 patients.
“Allows us to be self-reliant and help solve our initial supply chain problems [in 2020] Very valuable to the hospital,” Goldstein said.
The pandemic has enabled 3D printing to prove its worth in business too. Alex Drew, senior mechanical project engineer at Enovis (formerly DJO Surgical), said interacting with surgeons was difficult during the onset of the public health crisis due to the inability to assemble in person.
“Until Covid-19 protocols are sorted out, 3D printing design teams can still meet. They can also print out surgical tool trays and ship them to [appropriate people] to evaluate them. “
Surgeons can discuss 3D-printed surgical tool trays in Zoom or Webex meetings, he said.
Ken Gall, serial entrepreneur and associate dean for entrepreneurship at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering and a professor in the university’s departments of mechanical engineering and materials science, said the goal is to make medical device components cheaper at the point of care.
“The general hope is that we can deliver implants at a reasonable cost, leading to better patient outcomes. That’s always the main driver, but the medical device industry doesn’t always work that way. Usually costs are added, but not Will definitely yield better results. 3D printing can help [lower costs associated] and inventory management. “
A 2018 point-of-care report on the use of 3D printing in hospitals, shared in a webinar by FDA research scientist Matthew Di Prima, shows that while the majority (64%) use it to develop prototypes, 47% use it for surgical planning models , 46% for tools, 39% for printing surgical instruments, and more than a fifth (22%) use it to produce prosthetics.
The webinar also highlighted how the FDA and commercial players are considering 3D printing and new developments in the field.
