I was president of the IET for 2016-17, and have been asked by government to gather practical and innovative ideas from our Engineering communities. So, please enter any ideas you might have in this thread that might help address and mitigate the Covid-19 crisis. Ideas might include digital tracking / monitoring through therapy equipment and beyond. Even ideas outside your usual expertise domain will be welcome. Now’s the time for Engineering to show we can change the world!
(Current chair of the IET healthcare technologies network here.) It seems to me there are 3 broad themes here:
On ventilator design/manufacturing, and 3D printing of parts and equipment. Clearly lots can, and is, being done here but the regulatory challenges are very significant and (personally I think there is a long way to go on the regulatory side). Clearly there is also a need for leadership in this space, and coordinating projects. We don't need 100 different open source ventilator designs, that effort could be better spent on refining and testing a few. (>1 is needed for redundancy and to have separate supply chains.)
Mobile phone based tracking of people, movement and cases; easier reporting and similar. To my understanding this has worked very well in some Asian countries, but raises significant questions on privacy and what people will accept. (AI modelling of the spread and likely infection routes, prediction of infection risk on a per-person/site basis, likely comes in here too, although is likely well covered by the epidemiologists.)
Support for Medical Physics. The shortage of engineers in the NHS is known already (~10,000 IIRC but don't quote me), and the IET/IPEM/IMechE already had on the radar from before this a campaign to highlight this shortage. It's only ever the shortage of nurses that is mentioned in the media. To me, this is both the least mentioned in the media and elsewhere (it is in the thread already) and is likely the easiest to actually do. In principle honorary contracts and emergency basic training on 1/2 tasks can be done very quickly. Engineers on the ground are going to be critical in terms of actually keeping the infrastructure going.
(Current chair of the IET healthcare technologies network here.) It seems to me there are 3 broad themes here:
On ventilator design/manufacturing, and 3D printing of parts and equipment. Clearly lots can, and is, being done here but the regulatory challenges are very significant and (personally I think there is a long way to go on the regulatory side). Clearly there is also a need for leadership in this space, and coordinating projects. We don't need 100 different open source ventilator designs, that effort could be better spent on refining and testing a few. (>1 is needed for redundancy and to have separate supply chains.)
Mobile phone based tracking of people, movement and cases; easier reporting and similar. To my understanding this has worked very well in some Asian countries, but raises significant questions on privacy and what people will accept. (AI modelling of the spread and likely infection routes, prediction of infection risk on a per-person/site basis, likely comes in here too, although is likely well covered by the epidemiologists.)
Support for Medical Physics. The shortage of engineers in the NHS is known already (~10,000 IIRC but don't quote me), and the IET/IPEM/IMechE already had on the radar from before this a campaign to highlight this shortage. It's only ever the shortage of nurses that is mentioned in the media. To me, this is both the least mentioned in the media and elsewhere (it is in the thread already) and is likely the easiest to actually do. In principle honorary contracts and emergency basic training on 1/2 tasks can be done very quickly. Engineers on the ground are going to be critical in terms of actually keeping the infrastructure going.
