Seven diagnostic products took home gold and silver awards at the second annual Medical Design Excellence Awards ceremony, held in New York City on May 26. The winning devices share similar characteristics—they are fast, safe, easy-to-use, and accurate. Some are noninvasive—they rely on breath or urine samples and, in several instances, no samples at all—to diagnose kidney disease and ulcers and to measure bilirubin levels in newborns. Point-of-care tests were also popular with the awards jury. Many of the new designs also provide immediate test results.

The gold award winner in the Clinical Laboratory Equipment and Supplies category was the Hematype Segment device, designed and manufactured by Medical Safety Products Inc. (Englewood, CO). The Hematype is a low-cost solution to a dangerous problem in blood banks. Rather than cutting the blood-filled tubing, the technician inserts it into the Hematype, where a needle pierces the tube, and squeezes the sample into the test tube. The Hematype and inserted tubing segment can then be discarded into a biohazard container.

Hematype Segment, by Medical Safety Products Inc. (Englewood, CO).

 

Two products won silver awards in this category: the Stat Profile pHOx blood gas oximeter, designed and manufactured by Nova Biomedical Corp. (Waltham, MA); and the Laser-Assisted Ratio Analyzer (LARA), designed by Ion Design (Edgewater, NJ) and manufactured by Alimenterics Inc. (Morris Plains, NJ), a device that detects the presence of H. pylori, a bacterium linked to stomach ulcers, in a patient's breath.

Silver winners in the Diagnostic Devices category included the Clearplan Easy Fertility Monitor, designed by Unipath Ltd. (Bedford, UK), Cambridge Consultants Ltd. (Cambridge, UK), and Althofen Electronics (Althofen, Austria) and manufactured by Unipath Ltd.; the Precision PCx point-of-care blood glucose testing system manufactured by Medisense Inc./Abbott Laboratories (Bedford, MA) and designed by IDI/Innovations & Development Inc. (Edgewater, NJ) and Medisense Inc./Abbott Laboratories; the Bilicheck noninvasive bilirubin analyzer designed and manufactured by Spectrx Inc. (Norcross, GA); and the Immunodip test for urinary albumin designed by Diagnostic Chemicals Ltd. (Oxford, CT) and Bilyard and Bilyard (Woodbury, CT), manufactured by Diagnostic Chemicals Ltd.

Photo courtesy of Meical Safety Products