Originally Published EMDM May/June 2005
Engineering Insight
Fluid-Delivery Platform Helps Enteral Feeding System Go Portable
The EnteraLite Infinity system may make physical activity
a part of daily life for chronically ill patients
Caitlin Cook
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| The EnteraLite Infinity allows patients to take their enteral feeding systems with them. |
Many of the objects we’ve come to think of as critical to daily survival in the modern world have long since gone mobile, as with phones and computers. But what about the items that some people genuinely need to live? As the interviews in our 15th anniversary section of this issue attest, suppliers to the medical device industry are fully in tune with this trend. Advances in electronics, materials, and other technologies increasingly allow the design of smaller, lighter, and more-portable devices.
Zevex International Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) approached the portability issue from both an OEM and supplier perspective. “Look at the overall demographics of what’s happening in healthcare technology,” comments Phil Eggers, vice president of R&D engineering. “There’s miniaturization technology that accommodates the needs of patients as they move from hospital environments to home environments. It reflects a natural evolution of technology: mobility, simplicity, and safety.”
Charity Williams, director of marketing, says that years of experience with enteral feeding devices inspired the company to take the design a step further. “Marketing those products [taught us] that we could make enteral feeding easier for the patient,” she says.
Zevex chose to focus on a portable enteral feeding system because of the impact it could have on patients’ ability to be physically active, according to Williams. Design engineers from Eclipse Product Development Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) worked with Zevex engineers to create the fluid-delivery pump, which forms the basis of the device. The portable system that emerged won a Medical Design Excellence Award, as described in our MDEA coverage on page 89.
Designing from Multiple Standpoints
As a supplier to other OEMs, Zevex wanted to maximize the device’s potential. The company issued a key challenge to its engineers: the system had to have a modular design that would allow its core platform to be integrated into other fluid-delivery applications. This combination allowed the company to capitalize on fluid management, one of its core competencies, while making the system accessible for other manufacturers.
The modular design, says Eggers, permits reconfiguration without reinventing the wheel (or investing in it twice). “The architecture is relatively easily incorporated into other designs, such as IV applications and other fluid-delivery systems, with a minimum investment,” he says. “An example would be an ambulatory infusion pump.”
With multiple potential applications for the platform in mind, Zevex designers had to account for the range of viscosities and particle sizes of the fluids that might be delivered. Water, protein, fibre, and salt are among the substances that can be administered enterally.
Designed for home and hospital use, the entire device measures 1.95 ¥ 5.65 ¥ 4.05 in. and weighs 411 g. It is suited for bolus, continuous, and intermittent feeding programmes at flow rates ranging from 0.1 to 600 ml/hr. Some of the system’s features, such as optical pressure sensors and disposable cassettes that can be snapped into place with one hand, were developed specifically for the system.
A Whole New World for Chronically Ill Patients
For the device’s first customer, a child with nutritional malabsorption, a portable system makes a world of difference. Concerned that their son would not be able to participate in regular childhood activities, his parents looked to Zevex for a solution. The system now allows the boy to attend school without frequent trips to the nurse’s office for feeding sessions. Previously excluded from sports, he can now take part in extracurricular activities.
Physical activity has been demonstrated to enhance the lives of chronically ill patients, in terms of both quality of life and overall health. “There are a lot of patients who could be more active if their feeding pumps would allow them,” says Williams. The technology that made that possible for this first patient may do the same for many others.
Copyright ©2005 European Medical Device Manufacturer
