MEDICAL EQUIPMENT SUPPLY
operating theatres that had served as temporary COVID-19 wards back into theatres, in preparation for re-starting both elective and trauma surgery. He added: “We are also starting to see a re- start of many construction projects, with some teams working 24 hours per day in split shifts to get the necessary volume of labour back on site. There have been many examples of clever lateral thinking in ways to get work completed, which I’d like to think Brandon has responded to pretty well.”
Well-prepared and well-informed I wondered how social distancing guidance had impacted Brandon’s operations. “I think, we had a plan before most other people,” Graeme Hall explained, “with all the precautions in place 2-3 weeks before people started taking about there being a crisis in the UK. That was largely through talking to our customers in the Far East, where they were already experiencing the impact of the coronavirus, and had similarly with SARS. One of our competitors in northern Italy, Rimsa, located on the Piedmont / Lombardy border, which makes similar products, was right at the heart of the European ‘hotspot’ of cases, and we forearmed ourselves by talking to them about some of their experiences, and how they were managing. They were extremely helpful. We thus had hygiene systems in place early on, with extra emphasis on handwashing, and ‘hygiene patrols’ that stopped all but essential visitors attending site, and had also implemented social distancing, as well as a transition to remote working and bringing all of our overseas employees back. We had a pretty comprehensive set of measures in place, in fact, by late February.” Brandon Medical’s production had – Graeme Hall and Paul Grainger explained – continued uninterrupted throughout. Graeme Hall said: “Most of our assembly operations run five days per week, but we have also been running some equipment – such as our computer-controlled multi- axis machining centres, the newest of which is only a year old – 24/7 ‘lights out’.” Paul Grainger added that although the past few months had been ‘a big step for many businesses in entering a digital world’, for Brandon, it had been ‘very straightforward to do’. He explained: “We develop, install, and support telemedicine systems, and have been a truly digital business for the past decade. The working restrictions imposed by the coronavirus have thus not been massively disruptive to us; we already had the platforms in place.”
Fully integrated systems Graeme Hall said: “We offer fully integrated systems, but the platform via which we are talking today is part of our standard videoconferencing platform,
66 Health Estate Journal August 2020
Assembly of Quasar eLite HD-LED operating lights using Smart CEII quality processes.
which is in turn compatible with the Entoli system.” Paul Grainger explained: “Entoli is Brandon’s choice of platform for telemedicine, and control and distribution of signals and imagery from the operating room. In more usual circumstances, surgeons use the powerful Entoli system to control the images around the theatre and teach people remotely from the operating room. Over the past few weeks we have reversed the system; while our Leeds showroom and demonstration operating theatre are normally set up to show guests our technology in action, during the pandemic customers and potential buyers have been able to dial in remotely, and we can then give them a virtual tour, enabling them to make a more informed purchasing decision, and us to continue demonstrating the equipment. It is an entirely two-way system, that uses Entoli Medical via any videoconferencing platform.”
Rapid deployment facilities Graeme Hall further explained that with the existence now of a UK ‘offer’ for ‘Rapid Deployment’ emergency surge hospitals for COVID-19, the Brandon solutions, including Entoli hardware and software, had been used to enable the design of a variety of fully equipped clinical facilities. Brandon is also part of the counterpart Italian such programme. He said: “The main UK ‘Rapid Deployment’ system – which was put together for
the Department of International Trade – comprises a package of modular structural components which can, for instance, be flown out to where they are needed, on demand, and rapidly assembled on site. We were involved with Mott MacDonald, which led the UK initiative, on hospital design programmes, and were introduced to this particular scheme through individuals we work with on some of the export programmes. We used our Entoli 4K system to explain
our systems and undertake the design work with the designers of these Rapid Deployment facilities. The Italians are also building second phase ‘surge hospitals’ for deployment anywhere around the world.”
The Entoli Medical platform was principally developed for use in minimally invasive surgery. The latest version, Entoli 4K Ultra HD Integrated Operating Room, launched at Medica 2019, offers 4K video ‘with near-zero latency’, and is designed to enhance surgeons’ visual capacity, because, as Brandon puts it, ‘a 4K camera can see a lot more than the human eye’. Graeme Hall added: “Our development of Entoli-supported solutions was aided by our partnership with Advantech, one of the top technology companies in this field. It specialises in high-end IoT and building automation technologies. We installed the first Entoli 4K Ultra HD Integrated Operating Room system across eight existing theatres being reconfigured at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital In Sheffield late last year.”
A fulfilling few months He added: “Overall, it has been an extremely busy, but a very fulfilling and interesting, few months, and it has been gratifying to be able to play our part in the battle against the coronavirus.” Paul Grainger said: “A lot of people here have indeed felt like they have had three jobs for much of this time, but all have been delighted to contribute to the wider effort.”
Graeme Hall added that while there had been a noticeable impact on some smaller healthcare projects, the ‘big stuff’ had all been ‘going great guns’. He said: “We’ve had additional orders for export for COVID-related facilities, including ICUs and operating theatres. Overall, I would say we are busier than normal. We have a lot of great skills and resources here that we have been able to offer, and all our staff have wanted to be involved.”
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©Monty Rakusen
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