Disposable Surgical Tool Attachment System for Sterility and Cost
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current surgical power tools face challenges in maintaining sterility, increasing costs, and reducing patient safety due to inadequate cleaning and maintenance protocols, leading to infections and equipment failures, which are exacerbated by the high costs and complexities of reusable, battery-operated instruments.
Innovation Solution
A surgical tool and attachment system featuring a power tool with a rotary driver, a unitary power tool accessory unit, and single-use or limited-use accessories primarily made of low-cost injection molded components with minimal metallic parts, utilizing a simplified attachment system to reduce costs and minimize sterility risks, while ensuring functional effectiveness over a limited number of procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If reusable battery-operated surgical instruments are used, then cost of acquisition is reduced, but sterility maintenance becomes difficult and infection risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical instrument is divided into two segments: a reusable power tool body (housing, motor, battery) and a disposable accessory unit (cannula, cutting tool, attachment members). This segmentation allows the complex sterile components to be disposable while the expensive power tool is reusable, resolving the contradiction between acquisition cost and sterility maintenance.
Solution Approach 2:
The accessory unit containing the cannula, cutting tool, and attachment members is designed as a disposable component that is discarded after a single use or limited number of procedures. This eliminates the need for complex cleaning and sterilization protocols while ensuring sterility, as the disposable unit is pre-sterilized and sealed.
2Adaptability or versatility
If modular components are used in surgical tools, then interchangeability and component selection are improved, but cleaning and sterilization effectiveness decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The modular components (attachment members, cannulas, cutting tools) are segmented into a unified disposable accessory unit that attaches to the power tool body. This allows interchangeability of different accessory units for different surgical procedures while ensuring each complete accessory unit is pre-sterilized as an integrated assembly, maintaining sterilization effectiveness despite modularity.
3Weight of moving object
If lightweight materials are used in tool construction, then ergonomics and energy efficiency are improved, but structural strength and durability may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The power tool body utilizes composite construction combining lightweight materials (plastic housings, aluminum alloys) with strategic reinforcement of high-strength materials (metal gears, steel cutting tools) only where structurally necessary. This achieves weight reduction for ergonomics while maintaining structural strength in critical load-bearing components.
4Reliability
If single-use accessories are used, then sterility risks are minimized, but cost of acquisition increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the expensive power tool body (reusable, high-cost) from the accessory units (disposable, lower-cost). This allows single-use accessories to ensure sterility while controlling overall cost by reusing the expensive motor and battery components across multiple procedures, reducing the average cost per procedure despite using disposable accessories.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical tool and attachment system includes a surgical power tool including a housing and rotary powered driver. A power tool accessory unit includes a power tool accessory driver and an attachment member connected to the housing. A coupling interconnects the rotary powered driver and the power tool accessory unit.