The system for evaluating a constitutional risk of heat shock when bathing was developed and evaluated. The evaluation system consists of a thermal stimulation device, a transmissive camera system with near-infrared light and an automatic measurement software for blood vessel diameters of a finger. Peltier device and power supply with temperature control function were used for fabricating the thermal stimulation device. By using the NIR transmissive camera system, blood vessels transmissively appeared black on display and the transmissive image was saved on PC. In the performance evaluation test of the thermal stimulation device, the temperature controllability was high and the maximum temperature rate was 29.8 degrees C/minute on load test. In the performance test of the automatic measurement of blood vessel diameters using the developed software, the measurement accuracy of the developed software was comparable to that of manual measurement. In the result of applying the evaluation system to hand, blood vessel diameters of a finger changed depending on the thermal stimulation of heating or cooling. In the near future, the evaluation system would be going to improve more and suitable temperature conditions for an evaluation of heat shock risk would be studied in detail.

Introduction: A survey was conducted on the quantity of infusion pumps and syringe pumps owned by medical institutions employing clinical engineers, along with reference indices.
Methods: The survey was carried out between April 15 and July 30, 2022. A total of 11 items were surveyed, including pump quantities. Medical institutions were categorized into hospitals and clinics, and the correlation with the number of units owned per bed was examined. Descriptive statistics served as reference indices.
Results: The average number of pumps per bed was 0.39 for infusion pumps and 0.27 for syringe pumps, with the pump quantity rising in proportion to the number of beds. The most frequently utilized reference indices for determining the number of owned units were the operating ratio and the maximum number of units in use, in that sequence. However, there was variation in the calculation formula for the operating ratio among medical institutions.
Conclusion: The quantity of infusion pumps and syringe pumps owned was ascertained using foundational data, which, for the first time, incorporated indicators beyond the operating ratio.

Nosocomial infections that endanger patients are mainly transmitted through the hands of healthcare workers. At Tokyo University of Technology, 48 students (96 palms) underwent practical training in accordance with WHO hand washing guidelines. As a result, only 33 hands passed the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) test. Therefore, to optimize handwashing instruction, handwashing behaviors and cleaning results were compared. First, 41 subjects (82 palms) were measured for wrist acceleration during handwashing and ATP values of their hands before and after handwashing. The ATP values before hand washing ranged from approximately 6,000 to 180,000 RLU, making it difficult to determine whether the hand washing behavior was “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory”. Nine students (18 palms) were then ultrasonically cleaned, and ATP lotion was applied to keep ATP concentrations in a certain range before hand washing. Analysis of ATP removal rates and hand movements revealed that routine ATP concentration control was the most important factor, followed by lateral hand movements, keeping hands horizontal during hand washing, and the results will be utilized in future handwashing instruction.

Multi-channel access (MCA) radio, commonly used for communication during hospital disasters, emits powerful radio waves that may cause electromagnetic interference with medical electrical equipment. This study examined the impact of MCA radio waves on such equipment and formulated general operating guidelines to ensure their safe use within hospital settings. When we placed the MCA radio near 48 different medical electrical equipment, we observed that over half of them experienced some interference. The most significant impact was the complete cessation of ventilation when a ventilator was turned off. Based on Japanese domestic electromagnetic compatibility standards, we recommend the following operating guidelines for MCA radios: 1) Maintain a minimum distance of 3 meters from medical electrical equipment. 2) Keep a minimum distance of 15 centimeters from implanted medical devices. Therefore, it is crucial to acknowledge that MCA radios can affect medical electrical equipment and establish a systematic approach for their safe and correct use during hospital disaster scenarios.

In this study, our aim is to quantitatively evaluate and analyze the ventilator display values and the measured device values for tidal volume using three types of respiratory mechanics, for the purpose of conducting a comparative analysis. The artificial ventilators targeted in this study are the Philips Trilogy Evo series and the Breas Medical AB mart Ventilator Vivo 45LS, both of which utilize an exhalation port type single breathing circuit. Measurements were conducted using a measuring instrument and a test lung with adjustable compliance and resistance. As a result, a significant difference was found between the ventilator display values and the measured device values for tidal volume, regardless of the test lung settings. When setting the tidal volume of a ventilator, it is important not to rely exclusively on the displayed values.

It has been reported that about 400 kinds of medical devices are recalled every year in Japan. Additionally, more than 10,000 kinds of defect reports are raised in each year, of which 100 to 200 kinds of devices result in recalls. In this study, we analyzed medical device defect reports in Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare between 2008 and 2022 using text mining. We targeted total 4,278 case of generator of cardiac implantable electronic devices, of which 342 cases were recalled. We analyzed contents of problem status and health damage reports using text mining. Moreover, we attempted to estimate cases that result in recalls using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). As a method, using tohoku-BERT that a pre-training model based on Japanese Wikipedia data, and JMedRoBERTa that a pre-training model based on medical research papers. We conducted a classifier with fine tuning on a dataset annotated by medical device defect reports. As a result, the recall rate was 0.918 and the F2-score was 0.659 using JMedRoBERTa with over sampling data.

Non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (NIV) is equipped with a function to compensate for leaks caused by wearing a mask and other factors that affect trigger performance. In this study, in order to evaluate the different leak compensation/compensation functions of each model, spontaneous respiration was generated using a bench model, and the sensing response performance of inspiratory trigger performance when a leak occurred was evaluated for five ventilator models (including NIV-only models). In the general-purpose ventilator, the trigger became slower as the number of leaks increased, and some models failed to detect leaks, resulting in miss triggering. However, the dedicated ventilator had a delay in trigger detection, but the effect was less than that of the general-purpose ventilator, and no miss triggers were observed.