Reusable Auto-Injector with Simulated Training Container
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Solution Overview
Problem
Auto-injection devices lack advanced digital capabilities, leading to inefficiencies and safety concerns, such as incomplete medication administration, needlestick injuries, and economic wastefulness due to single-use designs, particularly for patients with little medical experience.
Innovation Solution
A training container device with stepwise instructions and a medicament delivery system that includes a movable housing, injection simulation member, plunger component, control interface, and circuitry to provide simulated injections and safe, efficient medicament delivery, allowing for reusable components and reduced needle exposure risks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If auto-injection devices are designed for single use to ensure safety and proper disposal, then needlestick injuries and disease transmission are reduced, but economic cost and waste increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The injection device is divided into two separate components: a reusable main body housing and a disposable needle cartridge. This segmentation allows the expensive and potentially hazardous needle portion to be discarded while the expensive electronic and mechanical components are reused, thereby reducing both needlestick injuries and economic waste
Solution Approach 2:
The needle and needle guard are extracted as a separate removable component from the main device body. This allows the needle to be easily removed and disposed of after a single use, eliminating needlestick injuries while preserving the reusable portions of the device for continued use
2Ease of manufacture
If auto-injection devices are made mechanically simple for ease of manufacture, then manufacturing cost is reduced, but digital capabilities and medication delivery regulation are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The device merges simple mechanical injection mechanisms with advanced digital capabilities including sensors, processors, and communication modules. This combination maintains ease of manufacture for the mechanical portions while adding digital regulation to ensure reliable medication delivery, monitoring, and tracking
Solution Approach 2:
The reusable device body serves multiple functions: it houses the injection mechanism, integrates digital sensing and processing capabilities, provides user interface functions, and enables communication with external systems. This multi-functionality allows a single device platform to handle both simple mechanical operations and complex digital regulation
3Reliability
If auto-injection devices are designed with advanced digital capabilities for precise medication delivery, then medication delivery regulation is improved, but device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Complex digital and mechanical components are concentrated in a reusable main body that can be manufactured once with high precision, while simpler components are made disposable. This segmentation reduces overall device complexity by allowing the complex portions to be optimized independently and reused across multiple devices
4Ease of operation
If training devices are created to reduce patient anxiety and improve self-administration, then patient safety and confidence are improved, but additional device complexity is introduced
Solution Approach 1:
A training device is created as a functional copy of the actual auto-injection device, replicating its external appearance, size, weight, and operational mechanics without containing a real needle or medication. This copying approach allows patients to practice self-administration safely, building confidence and reducing anxiety while using the same form factor and basic mechanisms as the real device, thereby improving ease of operation without proportionally increasing complexity
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enhances patient safety and efficiency by providing a training tool for self-administration and reducing needlestick risks through simulated injections and reusable components, while ensuring proper medicament delivery and handling.
Implementation Method 1
When the first housing moves relative to the second housing in a first direction, the injection member ejects from the second housing traversing a first contaminant barrier
Implementation Method 2
the plunger component having an actuation member to simulate delivery of medicament from the first housing
Implementation Method 3
the first housing is movable relative to the second housing. When the first housing moves relative to the second housing in a first direction, the injection member ejects from the second housing
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the invention include a medicament device configured to provide stepwise instructions for using the device to a user in a particular sequence is provided. The device includes a device housing configured to receive a container, the housing including a control interface, the control interface including at least one responsive member reactive to a user input, an actuation mechanism configured to interact with the container, a signal output component associated with the device housing, and circuitry associated with the device housing configured to control a provision of the stepwise instructions to the user in the particular sequence. The container includes a first housing for containing a medicament, a second housing, and an injection member, wherein the first and second housings are movable relative to one another. The container further includes an injection member which is retractable within the second housing to prevent an unintentional contact with the injection member.