HP Innovation Journal Issue 15: Summer 2020 | Page 36

Acceleration of Change Manufacturing In 48 hours HP designed, printed, and shipped this nylon-based nasal swab prototype for testing. Localized manufacturing where help is needed most When the COVID-19 crisis hit Barcelona, Spain, hospitals were filled with patients with severe respiratory issues who needed breathing assistance, and healthcare workers on the front lines contracted the virus because they lacked adequate personal protective equipment. To help address the urgent need, Clara Remacha Corbalán, HP’s 3D Printing COVID-19 Applications Lead, and her team worked with the local community to create a website where medical clinics could order emergency PPE and ventilation components through HP’s partner network. For certain in-demand applications, the team published design files so that those with appropriate 3D-printing capabilities could produce them. Almost immediately, requests poured in for face masks, face shields, door openers, nasopharyngeal swabs, and respirator components. Two days after getting a request for face shields from the nearby Hospital Sant Pau, her team had designed, printed, and delivered a prototype. In just five days, they started shipping a finished product in big volumes. Combined with other HP experts, their partners around the world, and the broader 3D-printing community, Remacha and more than 900 HP volunteers have collectively produced around 2.3 million 3D-printed PPE and medical device parts. Remacha’s team is working daily around the clock and through weekends to meet the demand. “When we receive an email or a call from a hospital just to say, ‘Thank you,’ those are the things that make us work harder,” she says. This article originally appeared on Bloomberg Green as part of a Bloomberg Green + HP partnership. How 3D printing answered the call for more nasopharyngeal swabs While 3D-printed solutions can fill the supply chain gaps in getting PPE supplies to medical workers, they also provide support to another critical area in battling the spread of COVID-19 testing. When Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Ramy Arnaout issued a call for more swabs to improve and increase COVID-19 testing, a cross-sector team answered him. HP collaborated with researchers at Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to iterate and optimize a design for a 3D-printed nasopharyngeal swab solution. The six-inch, nylon-based prototype was produced on an HP Multi Jet Fusion printer with a flexible neck and highly designed head to maximize sample collection and patient comfort. The swab was recently validated in an institutional review board–approved clinical trial and is now being manufactured by HP partners and used in healthcare settings and testing centers. Reinventing relationships to create new solutions Shortly after the novel coronavirus first appeared in the United States, Dr. Ryan Heyborne, chief medical officer of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, and his staff turned sections of the emergency department and intensive care unit into COVID-19 wards, and deployed testing and assessment services outside the hospital. Despite these efforts, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Boise community, Dr. Heyborne and his team quickly felt a strain on their PPE supply, one that would become more critical as the number of patients increased. So when HP reached out with a possible way to get Heyborne’s team the supplies he needed, he was all ears. In early March, an unexpected effort to support the battle against COVID-19 took shape. Telehealth pioneer and HP partner SmileDirectClub, which runs one of the largest 3D-printing facilities in the United States, producing millions of customized clear aligners, switched production gears. The 60 HP commercial 3D printers the company uses to make aligners for their customers’ doctor-prescribed treatment plans began creating 3D-printed PPE parts to supply medical workers fighting COVID-19. To date, SmileDirectClub has shipped 66,000 face shields to customers including Saint Alphonsus, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, and INNOVATION/ SUMMER 2020 34