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Writer's pictureRoos Marieke Oosting

Designing and building a medical device (WOCA) in Nepal - the BME graduation project of Lisa van de Weerd

For the last 3 months, together with Arjan Knulst, I have been working at Green Pastures Hospital in Pokhara Nepal on the WOCA VAC device. I’m happy to tell you a little bit about what I did!

 

The WOCA is a device used to treat patients with large wounds. It helps to suck the fluid out of the wound, which makes better and faster healing. This type of device is also used in European countries, but it’s often quite expensive. That’s why Arjan came up with the idea of making a device for the Nepali context.

 

I was lucky enough to have three working prototypes to work with, made from locally available components, thanks to the students who worked on this project before me.

 

We checked the design requirements and the ISO norm for the device again. Based on this, we did a few design iterations:

-       We made a canister holder (with the canister we collect the fluid from the wound): Now the canister can be attached to the device, which makes it portable for the patient

-       We designed a lid for the canister, which makes it easier to attach and detach the tubes from the motor to the canister and the tubes from the canister to the patient

-       We designed an overflow protection for the canister so that the WOCA stops collecting fluid when the canister is full

 

When we checked and tested all the requirements, we validated the technical design of the WOCA by interviews with nurses from the hospitals. They were allowed to give feedback on the device, and they scored for example the user-friendliness of the device.

 

Now the device is ready for a clinical trial conducted in Nepal, I’m excited to see it being used in a hospital setting!



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