Reposable Surgical Forceps End Effector Assembly for Lower Instrument Waste
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing surgical instruments, such as electrosurgical forceps, face contamination and degradation issues with electrodes and knife dullness after repeated use, necessitating the disposal of entire instruments, which increases waste and costs.
Innovation Solution
A surgical forceps design with separable and replaceable components, including a housing, movable handle, drive bar, and end effector assembly, allowing for the reuse of reusable components and customization of instruments for specific procedures by interchanging end effector assemblies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If entire surgical instruments are discarded after each procedure to ensure clean electrodes and sharp knives, then instrument reliability and cleanliness are maintained, but waste and instrumentation costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical forceps is divided into separable components including a reusable shaft assembly and replaceable end effector assemblies. The end effector assemblies containing electrodes and knives can be separated from the main shaft, allowing the shaft to be reused while replacing only the contaminated components, thus reducing waste and cost while maintaining instrument reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables recovery and reuse of the shaft assembly after sterilization, while the end effector assemblies are discarded after single use. This selective discarding and recovering approach maintains instrument cleanliness and effectiveness without requiring disposal of the entire instrument, significantly reducing waste and instrumentation costs.
2Reliability
If new instruments are used for each procedure to ensure clean electrodes and sharp knives, then instrument reliability is maintained, but instrumentation costs per procedure increase
Solution Approach 1:
The forceps is segmented into a reusable shaft and replaceable end effectors, allowing the expensive shaft to be reused across multiple procedures after sterilization, while only the cheaper end effectors are replaced. This segmentation significantly reduces instrumentation costs per procedure while maintaining reliability through clean electrodes and sharp knives in each end effector.
Solution Approach 2:
The end effector assemblies are designed as disposable components that are replaced after each procedure to ensure clean electrodes and sharp knives, while the more expensive shaft assembly is reused. This approach maintains instrument reliability without the need to discard the entire instrument, reducing instrumentation costs per procedure.
3Ease of manufacture
If the entire instrument is replaced instead of individual components, then ensuring clean and sterile surfaces is simplified, but device complexity and waste increase
Solution Approach 1:
The instrument is segmented into a reusable shaft assembly and replaceable end effector assemblies, allowing for selective replacement of only the contaminated end effectors while reusing the sterilized shaft. This segmentation balances ease of sterilization and replacement with device complexity by creating a modular system that simplifies the sterilization process while reducing waste.
4Productivity
If reusable components are implemented to reduce waste and costs, then instrumentation costs per procedure decrease, but ensuring clean and sterile surfaces becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the instrument into a reusable shaft and disposable end effectors, the patent simplifies the sterilization process to applying to only the reusable shaft component, which can be sterilized using standard medical sterilization techniques. This segmentation reduces the complexity of ensuring clean and sterile surfaces while maintaining cost reduction benefits through reusable components.
Solution Approach 2:
The end effector assemblies are extracted as separate replaceable components from the shaft assembly, allowing the shaft to be removed from contamination issues and sterilized independently. This extraction simplifies the sterilization process by isolating the reusable component from the disposable parts, making it easier to ensure clean and sterile surfaces while reducing instrumentation costs.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical forceps including a housing having a movable handle coupled thereto and movable between an initial position and a compressed position is disclosed. A drive bar is operably coupled to the movable handle such that movement of the movable handle between the initial and compressed positions effects longitudinal translation of the drive bar. The drive bar further includes a coupling member disposed at a distal end thereof. An end effector assembly includes first and second jaw members movable between spaced-apart and approximated positions. Each jaw member defines a cam slot. A cam pin is slidably disposed within the cam slot of each of the jaw members. The coupling member is configured to releasably engage the cam pin such that movement of the movable handle between the initial position and the compressed position effects movement of the jaw members between the spaced-apart position and the approximated position.