This reminds me of the $0.68 microscope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-D1Upn-KU. I love how a slight change in perspective can result in such drastic applications of the same idea.
How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
61–70 of 81 posts
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#62Why do I read this headline to myself in Adam Sandler's voice???
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#63It's not clear to me if he invented a new device, or simply built a 2$ home made version of a 6000$ standard bubble-CPAP. In other word, is this a story about ingenuity saving lives, or about regulation and industry profiting on medical devices killing lives? (Note that I'm not saying that we necessarily have too much regulation or that medical industry profits too much; I'm just saying that in this specific case the…
My guess: the hack one is less effective but in that area, a $6000 device might as well not exist, way out of reach for 99% of the people. So, maybe less effective in theory, but in reality it is saving countless lives. It's true that some money goes to designers, lawyers etc etc but when they see an opening, they do rip people off.
Exactly, something that saves 95% of patients but is 0% affordable is worse than something that saves 50% of patients but is 100% affordable.
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#64> Ever heard of the concept of "jugaad"? It's a Hindi term meaning cheap innovation. Let's use this word in English as well, as it allows to direct our attention to jugaad immediately.
They way English rifles through the pockets of other languages looking for vocabulary, just start using it and see if it sticks. :)
> They way English rifles through the pockets of other languages looking for vocabulary, just start using it and see if it sticks. :)
reply
I do this in my native language (Dutch) as well. My favorite one I came up with is "search term scavenger hunt" in Dutch it is one word as "zoekwoordspeurtocht".
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#65It's not clear to me if he invented a new device, or simply built a 2$ home made version of a 6000$ standard bubble-CPAP. In other word, is this a story about ingenuity saving lives, or about regulation and industry profiting on medical devices killing lives? (Note that I'm not saying that we necessarily have too much regulation or that medical industry profits too much; I'm just saying that in this specific case the…
Accessibility broadens as waste is eliminated from the system. No other manner increases accessibility. Medical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities). Regulation unfortunately builds in tremendous waste and reduces accessibility. A waste reduction like this is an incredible achievement.
Medical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities).
This seems like an oversimplification. The people capturing those gains are very often not the manufacturers. Often it's the retailers, not the manufacturers, who build those empires.
Unless it's different specifically in the medical device industry; if so, do you have examples?
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#66>>The hospital now deploys it routinely and the number of children who die there from pneumonia has fallen by three-quarters. That means the survival rate in the Dhaka Hospital is today almost on a par with that of children treated in rich-world facilities, using conventional ventilators. Innovation like this is facilitated by the lack of medical device regulations in Bangladesh.
Actually a doctor could probably do this in the us too. Weird stuff gets rigged up all the time, it’s just not as common as elsewhere because bugbhospitals have a ton of random stuff in inventory and cost is not constrained. Also physicians can file INDs with much less paperwork than a company could. But it’s nonzero, so doesn’t happen all that often.
US doctors would lose their license, savings and home. As soon as a child dies--bound to happen--they'll look for a reason to sue. I guess a US doctor might do a hack like this and called a hero, if the child was born in an airplane or cave somewhere and had no access to a hospital.
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, is it really worth it to a doctor in the US? Even if I _know_ for a fact that it would work 100% absolutely the same as the multi-million dollar device, that's not the accepted procedure. I could still do it and save thousands of lives, but as soon as _anything_ goes wrong there's going to be a lawsuit and the fact that I used this crappy looking $5 thing is going to be a huge part of it, even if it had absolut…
This hack isn't necessary in the US because the hospitals can afford (and already have) the proper bubble CPAP devices, which are more effective than hacked-together shampoo bottles anyway. It's a good thing there's regulations in place here preventing the use of less effective hacks when better devices exist. And yeah, it's not just regulation but also legal liability that comes into play here; in the long run it's…
>This hack isn't necessary in the US because the hospitals can afford (and already have) the proper bubble CPAP devices, which are more effective than hacked-together shampoo bottles anyway.
They can only afford it because we spend such an absurd amount of money on healthcare.
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#68Why do I read this headline to myself in Adam Sandler's voice???
Saving lives at a medium pace...
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually a doctor could probably do this in the us too. Weird stuff gets rigged up all the time, it’s just not as common as elsewhere because bugbhospitals have a ton of random stuff in inventory and cost is not constrained. Also physicians can file INDs with much less paperwork than a company could. But it’s nonzero, so doesn’t happen all that often.
US doctors would lose their license, savings and home. As soon as a child dies--bound to happen--they'll look for a reason to sue. I guess a US doctor might do a hack like this and called a hero, if the child was born in an airplane or cave somewhere and had no access to a hospital.
Have you ever been in a US emergency room, especially a rural one? The regulations are stiff, but not necessarily rigid, as the law is not a theorem-proving system.
Disclaimer: I am not an MD, but I used to work in drug and medical device development, where the regs did have to be followed strictly to the letter, and became quite familiar with where flexibility was and was not).
(And I meant IDE -- device exemption -- not IND, which is a drug exemption).
Re: How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Accessibility broadens as waste is eliminated from the system. No other manner increases accessibility. Medical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities). Regulation unfortunately builds in tremendous waste and reduces accessibility. A waste reduction like this is an incredible achievement.
Medical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities). This seems like an oversimplification. The people capturing those gains are very often not the manufacturers. Often it's the retailers, not the manufacturers, who build those empires. Unless it's different specifically in the medical device industry; if so, do you have examp…
The medical device industry (at least in the US) is very special. It does not have retailers per se, but there are a lot of middlemen who take varying, often enormous cuts. Medical device manufacturers make enormous amounts of money though. I am not sure how much of this is specific to the internal US market vs. carries over to US exports.
For a good treatment of this and many other aspects of US healthcare costs, see An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal.