Medical equipment

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Medical equipment

Medical equipment is designed to aid in the diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. These devices are usually designed with rigorous safety standards

Safety engineering

Safety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed even when pieces fail....
.

See also the main articles: implant
Implant (medicine)

An implant is a medical device made to replace and act as a missing biological structure . The surface of implants that contact the body might be made of a biomedical material such as titanium, silicone or apatite depending on what is the most functional....
, artificial limb
Artificial limb

An artificial limb is a type of prosthesis that replaces a missing Limb , such as arms or legs. The type of artificial limb used is determined largely by the extent of an amputation or loss and location of the missing extremity....
s, corrective lenses, cochlear implant
Cochlear implant

A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is Hearing impairment#Quantification of hearing loss....
s, dental implant
Dental implant

A dental implant is an artificial tooth root replacement and is used in Prosthodontics dentistry to support restorations that resemble a tooth or group of teeth....
s, prosthetics (ocular, facial)

There are several basic types:

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Encyclopedia

Medical equipment is designed to aid in the diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. These devices are usually designed with rigorous safety standards

Safety engineering

Diagnostic equipment includes medical imaging
Medical imaging

Medical imaging refers to the techniques and processes used to create s of the human body for clinical purposes or medical science .As a discipline and in its widest sense, it is part of biological imaging and incorporates radiology , radiological sciences, endoscopy, thermography, medical photography and microscopy ....
machines, used to aid in diagnosis. Examples are ultrasound
Medical ultrasonography

Diagnostic sonography is an ultrasound-based diagnostic medical imaging technique used to visualize subcutaneous body structures including tendons, muscles, joints, vessels and internal organs for possible pathology or lesions....
and MRI machines, PET
Positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography is a nuclear medicine medical imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body....
and CT
Computed tomography

Computed tomography is a medical imaging method employing tomography. Geometry Processing is used to generate a stereoscopy of the inside of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation....
scanners, and x-ray machine
X-ray machine

An X-ray machine is a device used by radiographers to acquire an x-ray image. They are used in various fields, notably medicine and security....
s.
Therapeutic equipment includes infusion pump
Infusion pump

An infusion pump infusion fluids, medication or nutrients into a patient circulatory system. It is generally used intravenously, although subcutaneous, artery and epidural infusions are occasionally used....
s, medical laser
Laser

A laser is a device that emits light through a process called stimulated emission. The term laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation....
s and LASIK
LASIK

LASIK or Lasik is a type of refractive surgery laser eye surgery performed by ophthalmologists for correcting myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism ....
surgical machines.
Life support
Life support

Life support, in the medical field, refers to a set of therapies for preserving a patient's life when essential body systems are not functioning sufficiently to sustain life unaided....
equipment is used maintain a patient's bodily function. These include medical ventilator
Medical ventilator

A medical ventilator may be defined as any machine designed to mechanically move breatheable air into and out of the lungs, to provide the mechanism of breathing for a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently....
s, heart-lung machines, ECMO, and dialysis machines.
Medical monitors allow medical staff to measure a patient's medical state. Monitors may measure patient vital signs and other parameters including ECG, EEG
Electroencephalography

Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20-40 minutes, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp....
, blood pressure
Blood pressure

Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels, and constitutes one of the principal vital signs. The pressure of the circulating blood decreases as it moves away from the heart through artery and capillary, and toward the heart through veins....
, and dissolved gases in the blood.
Medical laboratory equipment automates or help analyze blood
Blood

Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's Cell s ? such as nutrients and oxygen ? and transports waste products away from those same cells....
, urine
Urine

Urine is a liquid waste product of the body secreted by the kidneys by a process of filtration from blood called urination and excreted through the urethra....
and gene
Gene

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain their cell and pass genetic trait to offspring....
s.
Diagnostic Medical Equipment may also be used in the home for certain purposes, e.g. for the control of diabetes mellitus

A biomedical equipment technician

Biomedical Equipment Technician

A biomedical equipment technician is a highly skilled technologist that ensures that medical equipment is serviceable, safe, and properly configured....
(BMET) is a vital component of the healthcare delivery system. Employed primarily by hospitals, BMETs are the people responsible for maintaining a facility's medical equipment.

Inventions

C. 1280, spectacles
1540, artificial limb
Artificial limb

An artificial limb is a type of prosthesis that replaces a missing Limb , such as arms or legs. The type of artificial limb used is determined largely by the extent of an amputation or loss and location of the missing extremity....
, by Ambroise Paré
Ambroise Paré

Ambroise Par? was a French surgery. He was the great official royal surgeon for the kings Henry II of France, Francis II of France, Charles IX of France and Henry III of France and is considered as one of the fathers of surgery....
1630, obstetric forceps
Forceps

Forceps are a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. Forceps are used when fingers are too large to grasp small objects or when many objects need to be held at one time while the hands are used to perform a task....
, by Peter Chamberlen
Peter Chamberlen

Peter Chamberlen was the name of two brothers, the sons of William Chamberlen , a Huguenot surgery who fled from Paris to England in 1576. They are famous for inventing the modern use of obstetrical forceps....
1714, mercury thermometer, by Gabriel Fahrenheit
Gabriel Fahrenheit

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was an ethnic German physicist and engineer who was born in Danzig but lived most of his life in the Dutch Republic. The Fahrenheit temperature scale is named after him....
1775, bifocal
Bifocal

Bifocal may refer to:* Bifocals, eyeglasses whose corrective lenses each contain regions with two distinct optical powers* Fundamental matrix , which sometimes is referred to as "bifocal tensor"...
lenses, by Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and Printer , Satire, list of political philosophers, politician, scientist, inventor, activism, statesman, and diplomacy....
1792, ambulance
Ambulance

file:Ambulancebroomfieldhospital.jpgfile:C12 air ambulance.jpgfile:Scilly Isles Ambulance Service alongside Tresco quay.jpgAn ambulance is a vehicle for transporting sick or injured people, to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury....
, by Dominique Jean Larrey
Dominique Jean Larrey

Dominique Jean Larrey was a France surgery in Napoleon I of France's army and an important innovator in battlefield medicine....
1796, vaccination
Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to produce immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by a pathogen....
, by Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner, Fellow of the Royal Society, was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, England....
1816, stethoscope
Stethoscope

The stethoscope is a acoustic medicine device for auscultation, or listening to eth internal sounds of an animal body. It is stom often used to listen to heart sounds....
, by René Laennec
René Laennec

Ren?-Th?ophile-Hyacinthe Laennec was a French physician. He invented the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the H?pital Necker and pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions....
1817, dental plate
Dentures

Dentures are Prosthesis devices constructed to replace missing teeth, and which are supported by surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity....
, by Anthony Plantson
1853, hypodermic syringe, by Alexander Wood
Alexander Wood

Alexander Wood may refer to:* Alexander Wood , physician and inventor of the hypodermic needle* Alexander Wood , city magistrate in York, Upper Canada forced to leave Upper Canada in 1810 following allegations of scandal...
1887, contact lens
Contact lens

A contact lens is a corrective lens, cosmetics, or therapeutic lens usually placed on the cornea of the eye. Modern soft contact lenses were invented by the Czech Republic chemists Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav L?m, who also invented the first gel used for their production....
, by Adolf Fick
1895, X-ray
X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequency in the range 30 Hertz to 30 Hertz and energies in the range 120 Electron volt to 120 keV....
, by Wilhelm Röntgen
1903, electrocardiograph, by Willem Einthoven
Willem Einthoven

Willem Einthoven was a Dutch Physician and physiology. He invented the first practical electrocardiogram in 1903 and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 for it....
1956, endoscope, by Basil Hirschowitz
Basil Hirschowitz

Basil Isaac Hirschowitz is an academic gastroenterology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham best known in the field for having invented an improved optical Fiber which allowed the creation of a useful flexible endoscope....
1957, artificial pacemaker
Artificial pacemaker

A pacemaker is a medical device which uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart....
, by C. Walton Lillehei
C. Walton Lillehei

Clarence Walton Lillehei , was an American surgeon who pioneered open-heart surgery, as well as numerous techniques, equipment and prostheses for cardiothoracic surgery....
and Earl Bakken
Earl Bakken

Earl E. Bakken is an United States businessman and philanthropist of Norwegian American ancestry. He founded Medtronic, where he developed the first wearable artificial pacemaker in 1957 as a result of a fatal problem at the University of Minnesota hospital....
1958, ultrasound scan, by Ian Donald
Ian Donald

Professor Ian Donald was a Scotland doctor who pioneered the use of diagnostic ultrasound in medicine. His article Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound, published June 7 1958 in the medical journal The Lancet, was one of the defining publications in the field....
1973, CT (CAT) scan
Computed tomography

Computed tomography is a medical imaging method employing tomography. Geometry Processing is used to generate a stereoscopy of the inside of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation....
, by Godfrey Hounsfield
Godfrey Hounsfield

Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society, was an England electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan McLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography ....
and Allan Cormack
1982, artificial heart
Artificial heart

File:CardioWest? temporary Total Artificial Heart.jpgFile:Artificial-heart-london.JPGAn artificial heart is a mechanical device that is implanted into the body to replace the biological heart....
, by Robert Jarvik
Robert Jarvik

Robert Koffler Jarvik is an American scientist, researcher and entrepreneur known for his role in developing the Jarvik-7 artificial heart....

Source: Running Press Cyclopedia, second edition

Notable medical equipment companies

Boston Scientific
Boston Scientific

The Boston Scientific Corporation , is a worldwide developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices whose products are used in a range of interventional medical specialties, including interventional cardiology, peripheral interventions, neuromodulation, neurovascular intervention, electrophysiology, cardiac surgery, vascular surgery,...
Beckman Coulter
Beckman Coulter

Beckman Coulter Inc., is a company that makes biomedical laboratory instruments. Founded by Caltech professor Arnold O. Beckman in 1935 as National Technical Laboratories to commercialize a pH meter that he had invented, the company eventually grew to employ over 10,000 people, with $2.4 billion in annual sales by 2004....
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is a global United States pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company is listed among the Fortune 500....
Medtronic
Medtronic

Medtronic, Inc. , based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the world's largest medical technology company . Listed among Fortune 500 companies, Medtronic is a publicly traded company and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MDT....
Mindray
Mindray

Mindray Medical International Limited is China's largest medical equipment manufacturer, developing, manufacturing, and marketing Patient Monitoring Systems, Ultrasound Imaging Systems, and Diagnostic Laboratory Instruments for both human and veterinary use....
Spacelabs Healthcare
Spacelabs Healthcare

Spacelabs Healthcare , based in Issaquah, Washington, is a global manufacturer and distributor of medical devices and services. The company is currently organized into four major business units:...
St.Jude Medical
Philips
Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , usually known as Philips, is a Netherlands electronics company. It is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, founded and headquartered in the Netherlands....
GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare is a unit of GE Technology Infrastructure, which is a unit of General Electric . It employs more than 46,000 people worldwide and is headquartered in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom....
Siemens AG
Siemens AG

Siemens Aktiengesellschaft is Europe's largest engineering Conglomerate . Siemens' international headquarters are located in Berlin and Munich, Germany....