Research exercise: Pathway Toward the End-of-life Options for Medical Devices and Equipment

Authors

Presenter(s)

Tyler J. Bahdasarian, Aleksandar Grocic, Julia C. Hauser, Jose C. Panameno

Comments

This poster reflects research conducted as part of a course project designed to give students experience in the research process.

Files

Description

At the end of life, medical equipment can follow three major paths. The first being destruction, medical equipment which cannot be sterilized and is contaminated, then are incinerated; an example of this would be surgical waste that is soaked in bodily fluids and cannot possible be re-used. Some equipment contains toxic elements such as mercury and are dealt with according to the proper regulations and standards. The second path is recycling option. For example, in the case of MRI machines and many medical devices, more than 90% by weight can be recycled for material content. The final major path medical devices take is refurbishment. Medical devices on this path are generally collected by the manufacturers, fixed, updated, supplied with a new warranty and resold to the secondary market at a large percent of the original sticker price.This research examines the current practices of incineration, landfill, reuse, and refurbishment for medical devices and how the the industry can best reduce the environmental impact of these practices, reduce costs for hospitals and consumers, and improve the humanitarian efforts which are already underway. In addition, this research will discuss the philanthropy efforts surrounding reusable medical equipment and government involvement and incentives to recycling, reuse, and donate medical devices. A trend of refurbishment rather than buying new could be emerging from hospitals due to the Affordable Care Act which often case exempts refurbishers from a new medical device tax that was implemented under the law.

Publication Date

4-9-2015

Project Designation

Course Project

Primary Advisor

Jun-Ki Choi

Primary Advisor's Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Keywords

Stander Symposium project

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Business | Education | Engineering | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Recommended Citation

"Research exercise: Pathway Toward the End-of-life Options for Medical Devices and Equipment" (2015). Stander Symposium Projects. 596.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/596