Med-Tech Innovation Design
The Aviair single use bougie is being inserted with the aid of a laryngeal handle
tip of the bougie to gently brush the cartilage rings of the trachea. The resulting clicks confirm to the clinician correct placement of the bougie in the airway. The main challenge to this development was the bonding of the soft tip. Normal practice for single-use devices would be to solvent bond the tip to the distal end of the shaft. However, using solvents could result in the possibility of the tip detaching from the bougie when the endo-tracheal tube is inserted or removed from the patient. To ensure total integrity of this joint, Xograph designed an injection moulding tool suitable for insert moulding. Its in-house extrusion facilities produce the bougie shafts, which are then placed into the newly designed tooling. The injection moulding process then
forms and fuses the softer tip directly onto the end of the shaft. This gives the new bougie the perfect union between two different materials (polyurethane and PVC) and ensures patient safety is maintained. Added advantages of the softer tip are that when it passes through the trachea, the flexible design gently brushes over the tracheal rings, which reduces the risk of penetration and internal bleeding by deflecting the tip away from the vessel wall. The feedback generated by the softer tip also allows the clinician greater feel when positioning the bougie within the trachea. Once the clinician is sure that the endo-tracheal tube is placed correctly, the bougie is removed. The new design ensures that this operation does not cause any unwanted displacement of the tube; in previous products the removal of the bougie could cause jerking of both the bougie and endo-tracheal tube as it is removed. The likelihood of this happening with the new design has been dramatically reduced due to the characteristics of the unique deflective tip, and the reduction in the coude angle makes removal of the bougie a much easier and safer process.
Neil Cant is Production and Development Manager, Xograph Technologies Ltd, Xograph House, Ebley Road, Stonehouse GL10 2LU, UK, tel. +44(0)1453 820 320 email:
enquiry@xograhtechnologies.com www.xographtechnologies.com
38 ¦ September/October 2013
www.med-techinnovation.com
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