Think of healthcare and the medical industry and three words will likely spring quickly to mind as being of foremost importance: precision, quality, and safety. A fourth term, while perhaps less immediately obvious to the layman, underpins them all: accurate measurement. It applies especially to the production of medical instruments.
Stethoscopes; ophthalmoscopes, needles, speculums; most of us have encountered one or more of them at one time or another. They’re the stuff of everyday healthcare. The less fortunate among us may have been exposed to more, scalpels, ECG machines, bones saws, or surgical drills. Ouch! In between the extremes, lie devices like forceps, surgical scissors, endoscopes, and ultrasound machines. Summary: there are a lot of different types of medical instruments the performance of all of which we are reliant on to protect our health.
Here’s one thing all the above have in common. When it comes to their manufacturing and performance, measurement plays a critical role. As we’ve said, the healthcare industry demands and is reliant on high precision, quality, and safety in the production of medical instruments, and accurate measurements are what ensure that the necessary criteria are met.
10 arguments for measurement in medicine
To understand why this is the case, let’s break down and examine ten leading reasons why measurement is so important in medicine.
1 Small errors, big consequences
Precision and accuracy are table stakes if medical instruments are to perform effectively in the field. For this to be the case, instruments must be produced to meet tight tolerance windows and meet exact specifications. If the required criteria aren’t met, the consequences can be significant (and serious).
2 Safety and compliance
Medical instruments in all geographies must meet strict regulatory standards and quality requirements imposed by national bodies (for example, the FDA in the United States). To ensure compliance, precise measurements must be taken in the manufacturing process and these, implicitly, thus also serve as a protection for the safety of both patients and healthcare providers.
3 No measurement, no quality
Quality control in the manufacturing process is key in the medical industry and accurate measurement plays a pivotal role in this, as you might expect. Measurements can help to identify defects, variations, and discrepancies in a production process, allowing manufacturers to address issues promptly and maintain consistent product quality.
4. Selecting the right materials
One critical aspect of medical instruments is the choice of raw materials used to make them, which contributes to a device’s performance, durability, and safety. Measurement plays a key role in assessing a material’s properties and characteristics, thus ensuring the most suitable choices for an instrument’s intended use are made. It’s also worth noting that a lot of the materials used in the medical field are very strong and thus put extreme stress on the tools that cut them (titanium and ceramics are good examples). Measurement is therefore vital to ensure the tools continue to perform optimally.
5. Safe, reliable
Think about a medical instrument in the context its designed to be used in and it’s easy to see that reliability and safety are vital. Precise measurement contributes to and confirms the structural integrity of instruments, mitigating the risk of malfunction or failure in use.
6. A familiar term: traceability
Traceability (the ability to track a measurement back to an established and recognized standard) is vital for a variety of reason including root cause analysis, process improvement, defect identification, and others. As in many domains, traceable measurements represent a “gold standard” for quality.
7. Compatibility
Many medical instruments need to be consistent in shape and size to ensure that they are both interchangeable and compatible with other devices and equipment when in use. This can’t be achieved without accurate measurement in the manufacturing process.
8. Another familiar term: calibration
To perform consistently over time, many instruments require calibration (and ongoing maintenance). Measurement data is necessary to this process to establish calibration standards and protocols and verify that instruments remain “roadworthy” over time.
9. What comes next
While accurate measurements, as we’ve seen, assure performance in the present they also contribute to the development of the next generation of medical instruments. Engineers use precise measurements to design innovative new devices that can offer better patient outcomes.
10. Health and safety
An inaccurate measurement has the potential to lead to a negative treatment outcomes or incorrect diagnoses. Therefore, accurate measurement also plays a role in risk mitigation in the field of medicine by ensuring that equipment meets the required specifications for optimal performance.
Problems in the process?
We can safely claim that the accuracy of medical devices depends in large part on the accuracy of the machine tools used to manufacture them, the range of which is broad and may include ball tools, flat tools, bullnose tools, tap tools, drill tools, plunging tools, and other equipment. These tools must be as precise as the instruments they are used to produce if the end results of manufacturing are to meet specification. A tool that, for instance, overcuts or undercuts, will not deliver the necessary outcomes. Furthermore, tool performance must be monitored continually, as tools can bend or deform during use.
In reality, the possible consequences of inaccurate tools are highly significant! Patient injury is the obvious one alongside inaccurate diagnosis, infection risk, surgical complications and in all such cases exposure to legal liability. Tool size and accuracy aren’t thus abstract requirements; they’re vital components of ensuring safety.
Measurement can – and has – long been used to detect anomalies. If measurements can be taken during the production process itself, manufacturers can understand wear, identify issues, and make any adjustments necessary to secure the production outcomes they require. Measurements systems should also be able to provide real-time feedback, in an automated manner – which means operations can be adjusted via closed loops.
And that’s where we come in. Our CU2 Tool provides accurate, in-situ measurement of machine tools used to produce components and equipment used throughout the medical sector. We help manufacturers reduce waste, maintain production efficiency and deliver more accurate solution across the supply chain.
About Conoptica
Conoptica is a leading source of high accuracy measurement systems, offering a variety of different measurement systems applicable to the medical manufacturing industry. They enable accurate measurement, so users can track consistency and take appropriate actions – avoiding excessive quality deterioration and enabling better production outcomes.
Conoptica is the market leader for measurement equipment in the wire & cable industry and has been providing high tech camera-based measurement solutions since 1993. We make sure that the metal working industry has access to key quantitative data about their products and tools.