The Bair Hugger system is a convective temperature management system used in a hospital or surgery center to maintain a patient's core body temperature. The Bair Hugger system consists of a reusable warming unit and single-use disposable warming blankets for use before, during and after surgery. This medical device launched in 1987 and is currently manufactured by the 3M Company. [1]
The Bair Hugger system uses convective warming, also known as forced-air warming, to prevent and treat perioperative hypothermia.
The system includes two primary components: a warming unit and a disposable blanket. The warming unit is connected by a flexible hose to the single-use blanket. Warm air from the warming unit passes through the flexible hose and into the blanket. Once the warmed air reaches the blanket it exits through a series of micro-perforations on the underside of the blanket, warming the patient's skin in an area not involved in the surgical procedure. [2]
The Bair Hugger system warms effectively due to the properties of convection and radiation; heat transfer improves with the movement of warmed air across the surface of the patient's skin. Up to 64 percent of the patient's body surface may be recruited for heat transfer, depending on which Bair Hugger blanket is used. [3]
The Bair Hugger system was originally designed by Scott Augustine, MD of Minnesota. [4] The Bair Hugger was produced by Arizant, previously known as Augustine Medicine. Augustine resigned from Arizant in 2002, and Arizant was bought by 3M in 2009. [5] Augustine later invented a different type of patient-warming device and formed a separate company to sell his competing device. [4]
Convection is single or multiphase fluid flow that occurs spontaneously due to the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity. When the cause of the convection is unspecified, convection due to the effects of thermal expansion and buoyancy can be assumed. Convection may also take place in soft solids or mixtures where particles can flow.
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes. Engineers also consider the transfer of mass of differing chemical species, either cold or hot, to achieve heat transfer. While these mechanisms have distinct characteristics, they often occur simultaneously in the same system.
An operating theater is a facility within a hospital where surgical operations are carried out in an aseptic environment.
Sterilization refers to any process that removes, kills, or deactivates all forms of life and other biological agents present in or on a specific surface, object, or fluid. Sterilization can be achieved through various means, including heat, chemicals, irradiation, high pressure, and filtration. Sterilization is distinct from disinfection, sanitization, and pasteurization, in that those methods reduce rather than eliminate all forms of life and biological agents present. After sterilization, an object is referred to as being sterile or aseptic.
Computer cooling is required to remove the waste heat produced by computer components, to keep components within permissible operating temperature limits. Components that are susceptible to temporary malfunction or permanent failure if overheated include integrated circuits such as central processing units (CPUs), chipsets, graphics cards, and hard disk drives.
An electronic lab notebook is a computer program designed to replace paper laboratory notebooks. Lab notebooks in general are used by scientists, engineers, and technicians to document research, experiments, and procedures performed in a laboratory. A lab notebook is often maintained to be a legal document and may be used in a court of law as evidence. Similar to an inventor's notebook, the lab notebook is also often referred to in patent prosecution and intellectual property litigation.
Electric heating is a process in which electrical energy is converted directly to heat energy. Common applications include space heating, cooking, water heating and industrial processes. An electric heater is an electrical device that converts an electric current into heat. The heating element inside every electric heater is an electrical resistor, and works on the principle of Joule heating: an electric current passing through a resistor will convert that electrical energy into heat energy. Most modern electric heating devices use nichrome wire as the active element; the heating element, depicted on the right, uses nichrome wire supported by ceramic insulators.
Endometrial ablation is a surgical procedure that is used to remove (ablate) or destroy the endometrial lining of the uterus. The goal of the procedure is to decrease the amount of blood loss during menstrual periods. Endometrial ablation is most often employed in people with excessive menstrual bleeding, who do not wish to undergo a hysterectomy, following unsuccessful medical therapy.
Microshock refers to the risk that patients undergoing medical procedures involving externally protruding intracardiac electrical conductors, such as external pacemaker electrodes, or saline filled catheters, could suffer an electric shock causing ventricular fibrillation (VF) due to currents entering the body via these parts.
All electronic devices and circuitry generate excess heat and thus require thermal management to improve reliability and prevent premature failure. The amount of heat output is equal to the power input, if there are no other energy interactions. There are several techniques for cooling including various styles of heat sinks, thermoelectric coolers, forced air systems and fans, heat pipes, and others. In cases of extreme low environmental temperatures, it may actually be necessary to heat the electronic components to achieve satisfactory operation.
"Technical textile" refers to a category of textiles specifically engineered and manufactured to serve functional purposes beyond traditional apparel and home furnishing applications. These textiles are designed with specific performance characteristics and properties, making them suitable for various industrial, medical, automotive, aerospace, and other technical applications. Unlike conventional textiles used for clothing or decoration, technical textiles are optimized to offer qualities such as strength, durability, flame resistance, chemical resistance, moisture management, and other specialized functionalities to meet the specific needs of diverse industries and sectors.
A chilled beam is a type of radiation/convection HVAC system designed to heat and cool large buildings through the use of water. This method removes most of the zone sensible local heat gains and allows the flow rate of pre-conditioned air from the air handling unit to be reduced, lowering by 60% to 80% the ducted design airflow rate and the equipment capacity requirements. There are two types of chilled beams, a Passive Chilled Beam (PCB) and an Active Chilled Beam (ACB). They both consist of pipes of water (fin-and-tube) that pass through a heat exchanger contained in a case suspended from, or recessed in, the ceiling. As the beam cools the air around it, the air becomes denser and falls to the floor. It is replaced by warmer air moving up from below, causing a constant passive air movement called convection, to cool the room. The active beam consists of air duct connections, induction nozzles, hydronic heat transfer coils, supply outlets and induced air inlets. It contains an integral air supply that passes through nozzles, and induces air from the room to the cooling coil. For this reason, it has a better cooling capacity than the passive beam. Instead, the passive beam provides space cooling without the use of a fan and it is mainly done by convection. Passive beams can be either exposed or recessed. The passive approach can provide higher thermal comfort levels, while the active approach uses the momentum of ventilation air that enters at relatively high velocity to induce the circulation of room air through the unit. A chilled beam is similar in appearance to a VRF unit.
Hemoperfusion or hæmoperfusion is a method of filtering the blood extracorporeally to remove a toxin. As with other extracorporeal methods, such as hemodialysis (HD), hemofiltration (HF), and hemodiafiltration (HDF), the blood travels from the patient into a machine, gets filtered, and then travels back into the patient, typically by venovenous access.
MiniMed Paradigm is a series of insulin pumps manufactured by Medtronic for patients with diabetes mellitus. The pump operates with a single AAA battery and uses a piston-plunger pump to infuse a programmed amount of insulin into the patient through a length of tubing. The Paradigm uses a one-way wireless radio frequency link to receive blood sugar measurements from select glucose meters. The Paradigm RT series adds the ability to receive data from a mated continuous blood-glucose monitor. Although the pump can use these measurements to assist in calculating a dose of insulin, no actual change in insulin delivery occurs without manual user-intervention.
Pencil beam scanning is the practice of steering a beam of radiation or charged particles across an object. It is often used in proton therapy, to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure to surrounding non-cancerous cells.
Barcode technology in healthcare is the use of optical machine-readable representation of data in a hospital or healthcare setting.
Radiant heating and cooling is a category of HVAC technologies that exchange heat by both convection and radiation with the environments they are designed to heat or cool. There are many subcategories of radiant heating and cooling, including: "radiant ceiling panels", "embedded surface systems", "thermally active building systems", and infrared heaters. According to some definitions, a technology is only included in this category if radiation comprises more than 50% of its heat exchange with the environment; therefore technologies such as radiators and chilled beams are usually not considered radiant heating or cooling. Within this category, it is practical to distinguish between high temperature radiant heating, and radiant heating or cooling with more moderate source temperatures. This article mainly addresses radiant heating and cooling with moderate source temperatures, used to heat or cool indoor environments. Moderate temperature radiant heating and cooling is usually composed of relatively large surfaces that are internally heated or cooled using hydronic or electrical sources. For high temperature indoor or outdoor radiant heating, see: Infrared heater. For snow melt applications see: Snowmelt system.
Due to the many regulations in the industry, the design of medical devices presents significant challenges from both engineering and legal perspectives.
Ovine forestomach matrix (OFM) is a layer of decellularized extracellular matrix (ECM) biomaterial isolated from the propria submucosa of the rumen of sheep. OFM is used in tissue engineering and as a tissue scaffold for wound healing and surgical applications
Aroa Biosurgery Limited is a regenerative medicine company that develops, manufactures and distributes products for wound healing and soft tissue reconstruction. Aroa Biosurgery is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand with a US office in San Diego, CA, USA and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company, originally known as Mesynthes Limited, was founded in 2008 by Veterinarian Surgeon Dr Brian Ward (BVSc). The company develops and commercializes products based on its proprietary ovine forestomach matrix technology platform with products in wound healing as well as plastics and reconstructive surgery and repair of hernia.
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