Pen Needle Magazine With Selection Ring For Single-Use Sterility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Medication pens face inefficiencies and inconveniences due to needle reuse, which dulls the needle, increases health risks, and compromises sterility, as patients often reuse needles due to financial concerns and lack of access to supplies.
Innovation Solution
A needle assembly for medication pens that includes a housing with a hub to engage the pen, a selection ring to identify and expose needles one at a time, and a mechanism to prevent radial movement, ensuring each needle is used once and maintaining sterility by always piercing a vial or reservoir septum.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of substance
If patients reuse needles due to financial concerns and lack of access to supplies, then cost savings are achieved, but needle dullness increases causing patient pain, needle strength decreases causing potential fracture, and sanitary concerns increase causing health risks
Solution Approach 1:
The needle supply is segmented into multiple individual needles stored in a magazine, allowing patients to use one needle per injection while having multiple needles available. This eliminates the need to reuse needles while ensuring continuous supply and maintaining cost-effectiveness through proper needle utilization.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple needles are pre-loaded into the magazine before use, ensuring that a fresh needle is always available for each injection. This preliminary preparation eliminates the need for needle reuse by having ready-to-use needles on hand, thereby maintaining needle sharpness, strength, and sterility throughout the treatment process.
2Reliability
If a magazine of needles is provided for medication delivery, then needle reuse is reduced improving safety and sterility, but device complexity increases due to additional components and mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The magazine mechanism is merged with the existing medication pen structure, integrating needle storage and selection functions into the familiar pen form factor. This integration minimizes additional complexity while maintaining sterility and safety through organized multi-needle storage and controlled access.
Solution Approach 2:
The magazine mechanism serves multiple functions: storing multiple needles, protecting them until use, enabling easy selection of individual needles, and maintaining sterility. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate devices or complex additional components, achieving improved safety without excessive complexity increase.
3Reliability
If each needle moves axially only without radial movement, then sterility is maintained by always piercing the septum, but ease of operation may be reduced due to constrained needle movement
Solution Approach 1:
The needle assembly incorporates dynamic axial movement capability, allowing needles to move forward and backward along the longitudinal axis. This controlled axial motion enables needles to pierce the septum when needed while returning to a retracted position for protection, maintaining sterility through consistent septum engagement while preserving operational ease through smooth, constrained movement.
Data Source
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AI summary
An attachable needle assembly (2) is disclosed for use on a medication delivery pen (4). The needle assembly (2) includes a housing (8) enclosing a hub (12) that is configured to engage the medication delivery pen (4), a plurality of needles (18) configured to pierce a reservoir septum (6) of the medication delivery pen (4), a selection ring insert (30) that rotates and identifies which needle (24) of the plurality of needles (18) is to be selected, and a selection ring (36) that applies a force to expose the selected needle (24). When the housing (8) is in a first position, the plurality of needles (18) is not exposed, and when the housing (8) is in a second position, one of the plurality of needles (24) is exposed for medicament delivery.