Medical Device Developments March 2011

Cover Story

Quality control By Albert C. Edwards The ability to manufacture medical devices with consistent quality is predicated on a company having well-documented and well-implemented manufacturing processes, from incoming inspection until... > read more

Grenoble warming High-temperature superconductors could eliminate the need for cooling in MRIs of the future and therefore dramatically reduce costs. Nic Paton speaks to Dr Paul Steffens, a scientist at...

Joint at the hip In 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, was forced to recall two of its hip replacement systems because of a higher-than-normal failure rate. Nic Paton reports on how...

Planet-friendly packaging By Art Gibson The global market for sustainable packaging is growing fast, although the medical device sector has not yet made a significant shift in this direction. Katherine O’Dea, senior fellow at...

Latin promise By John Cecilia America's healthcare reform hides an inconvenient truth: a 2.5% tax increase on medical devices, which could amount to $20bn in ten years. As a result, device manufacturers are looking...

Powering down By Kenji Uchino Dramatic reductions in voltage and power requirements are making tiny piezo motors and drive systems an interesting option for portable, low-power medical devices. As their efficiency is...

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Hamworthy - Water droplets in a flow loop

Medical Device Developments December 2011

In the past, patients requiring prosthetic limbs have had to endure extended waiting times as a result of the limitations of manufacturing processes - and, even once their limb has been...

Medical Device Developments September 2011

The ongoing drive to shrink medical devices shows no sign of letting up, but one of the biggest issues is reducing the size of the electronics used. Abi Millar talks to AWAIBA’s Martin Wany...

Medical Device Developments June 2011

Polyetheretherketone - or PEEK - is being used more widely in medical devices and the organic polymer thermoplastic is said to be transforming large swathes of the industry. But, as Steve Krutz...

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Perfect harmony
By John Wilkinson Global harmonisation keeps patients safe and makes technology cheaper, but getting new technology out quickly for the world's ageing populations remains a major challenge to European...

To protect and serve
More than half of healthcare-associated infections are device-related, and recent data suggests that many of these infections are related to biofilm development on foreign materials. Prevention...