A thermal solution for home hemodialysis device
Healthcare organizations are increasingly seeking solutions to treat patients in home care settings in order to reduce the burden on traditional healthcare facilities, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach is also patient-friendly: Removing the need to travel to a clinic and instead receiving care in the home adds to patient comfort and convenience. In-home care allows for more frequent treatment, improving patient outcomes while reducing the overall cost of therapy.
In the medical device market, this trend has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it has meant a large increase in demand for certain medical devices. On the other hand, it has led to greater scrutiny of devices and increasingly stringent safety standards. Measures used to increase safety precautions are often at odds with the need to make home care devices smaller and more portable than those used in a clinical setting. Hemodialysis, a procedure where blood is cleaned using a dialysis machine with a special filter that acts as an artificial kidney, is an excellent candidate for home care adaptations, given the growing number of patients that require the treatment on a regular basis. However, home use of these medical devices is quite different compared to hemodialysis performed in a controlled clinical setting and administered by trained medical professionals.
When a home medical device manufacturer approached Watlow for a thermal solution for its home hemodialysis device, Watlow delivered an innovative solution that not only met requirements for size and safety, but also improved the overall system. The goal of Watlow’s customer was to design a home hemodialysis device that met all safety guidelines while being portable and convenient for patient use. Compared to the incumbent system design, the system with Watlow’s FLUENT in-line heater was much lighter and had a smaller footprint—a staggering improvement in weight and volume.
Innovations in FLUENT technology also created efficiencies in system response speed and cleaning functionality. Watlow’s approach to working with the customer using a systems approach helped
them navigate the engineering tradeoffs between size and safety without compromise.
