AFMC develops patient isolation device for healthcare workers

Pune: Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) has come up with “Raksha Kawach”, a patient isolation device to protect healthcare workers from infectious aerosols. The

Pune: Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) has come up with “Raksha Kawach”, a patient isolation device to protect healthcare workers from infectious aerosols. The device is not just Covid specific, but intends to minimise the contagion load in hospital atmosphere housing patients with other airborne diseases. An infectious aerosol is a collection of pathogen-laden particles in air.

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The device is developed by a team led by Lt Col (Dr) Shamik Kr Paul, a neuro anaesthesiologist and assistant professor in the department of anaesthesia and critical Care at AFMC and Dr Ajay Suryavanshi, a biomedical engineer and an alumnus of IIT Bombay.

The device is a compact, quickly-deployable, portable, user-friendly and cost-effective aerosol containment system with two modules: a retractable canopy unit to create a physical barrier around the patient and a fan-filter unit to scavenge and filter contaminated air.

The canopy is made up of a disposable transparent collapsible plastic enclosure and a reusable retractable plastic frame with all-detachable components. The fan-filter unit selectively clears off aerosols released from the patient by applying negative pressure over the patient’s exhale cloud by means of suction blower, further filtering through high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) and disinfecting by UVC radiation to vent off decontaminated air.

The unique feature of this device is two modes for immediate access to the patient: suitably sized “on-off” windows at front and back walls of canopy for brief procedures (canopy on) and instant retraction for long-term procedures (canopy off). The canopy dimensions are large enough to avoid any patient claustrophobia while still maintaining a smaller footprint to accommodate into ICU limited floor space. The canopy is lightweight, easy and fast to install (and uninstall) within 5-10 minutes and can be packed into a carry bag similar to a cricket kit bag for easy transport and storage.

The safety and effectiveness of the device has been established by comprehensive third party validation from National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL)-accredited testing facility. The provisional patent and design registration have been filed for the technology which is ready for tech-transfer to interested licensing partners on a non-exclusive basis.

“Raksha Kawach” is beneficial for diverse user-cases like single-bed and multi-bed (array of canopies connected to single fan-filter unit) ICUs, Covid/TB hospitals/wards, triage centres, quarantine facilities as well as home isolation. The innovation would have a greater impact in reducing the infectiousness of the airborne diseases like Covid and TB thus creating a safer work environment for health care workers improving patient care and becoming an integral part of hospital infrastructure as airborne infection-control strategy in post-Covid era.