THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF USING 3D- PRINTING IN LOW-RESOURCE HEALTHCARE SETTINGS
Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco Cantamessa, Dorian Marjanovic, Monica Bordegoni
Author: Rismani, Shalaleh; Van der Loos, H.F.Machiel
Series: ICED
Institution: University of British Columbia, Canada
Section: Design for Life
Page(s): 495-504
ISBN: 978-1-904670-64-3
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
Fabrication of medical devices using 3D-printing (3DP) technology can reduce the lack of adequate supply of medical devices in low-resource hospitals. Similar to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), 3DP facilities can be established with a low start-up cost and they can leverage the support of existent open-source community. This paper highlights how ICTs implementations have been successful in addressing information management issues in low-resource healthcare setting and from there argues how 3DP can offer similar advantages by providing low-cost medical devices. Three main case studies of 3DP applications are explained in-depth.
Keywords: Design For X (DfX), Biomedical Design, Open Source Design, Complexity, Technology