An Overview of Blockchain Technology and Its Adoption in Industry

The development of a cryptocurrency cannot occur without the use of a vital piece of technology known as blockchain. It is a distributed ledger that has progressed to the point where they are now even more applicable and beneficial. This is due to the passage of time and the development of many sectors. These days, blockchain technology is being employed in certain ways throughout all the industries. In this study, each and every significant attribute and weakness is discussed and analyzed. We have also conducted a literature analysis on blockchain-related topics and highlighted some of the most current sectors in which blockchain technology has found the greatest utility. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Assessment of 3D Printing for Surgical Instrument Manufacturing

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has emerged as a method for rapid prototyping and manufacturing of tools. In low-resource settings or field settings, the ability to perform surgeries is often limited by a lack of surgical instruments. On-demand manufacture of surgical instruments via 3D printing may offer a low-cost, reliable, convenient solution for provision of necessary care, particularly during trauma or emergency situations. The global coronavirus-19 disease pandemic has emphasized the need for rapid manufacturing of surgical instruments at the point of care, as the pandemic has often limited patient access to hospitals, due to measures to minimize the spread of infectious disease. Moreover, the ability to 3D print surgical instruments is a priority for enabling surgery during space missions. Recent progress has been made on 3D printing of commonly used surgical instruments from plastics. Important surgical tools such as forceps, scalpel handles, needle drivers, Army/Navy retractors, and hemostats have all been 3D printed, with typical print times on the order of hours. This paper assesses the current status of 3D printing of surgical instruments. The review will include 3D printing methods, raw materials, design times, print times, sterilization methods, and the types of surgical instruments that have been successfully printed. In addition, the results of mechanical testing and simulated surgical testing of 3D printed surgical instruments will be described. Finally, avenues for future work will be identified, including the need for faster print times, and the necessity for producing more intricate instruments via 3D printing. © 2022, Avestia Publishing. All rights reserved.

Surge in Adverse Events for Prescription Opioids and Opioid Overdose Treatments during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The opioid epidemic is one of the most pressing public health issues of our time, with hundreds of deaths daily due to opioid overdose. This research investigates the number of reported adverse events related to the use of prescription opioids and opioid overdose treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic, lending further insight into the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the opioid epidemic. We hypothesized that adverse events for both prescription opioids and opioid overdose treatments rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to isolation and lack of access to healthcare services. Using data from the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), we analyzed the number of adverse drug events (ADE) in the years 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019, specifically for the medications Naloxone(G), Naloxone Hydrochloride(G), Oxycodone(G), Oxycodone Hydrochloride(G), and Oxycontin(P). We also analyzed the most commonly reported types of adverse reactions and the age of the reporters. The data reveals an alarming spike in the number of ADEs attributed to Naloxone(G) from 2019 to 2020, increasing by 148% and then another 29% in 2021. Similarly, the number of ADEs reported for Naloxone Hydrochloride(G) nearly rose four-fold from 66 to 246. For the prescription opioid Oxycodone(G), there was a 78% increase in ADEs from 2019 to 2020. More concerningly, there was a 434% spike in the number of ADEs for Oxycodone Hydrochloride(G) and more than thirteen-fold the number of cases in 2020 than 2019 for Oxycontin(P). Finally, we found the most commonly reported reactions were "overdose,” "drug dependence,” "drug withdrawal syndrome,” and "drug abuse”;the 18–64-year-old age group reported the majority of the cases. These results highlight the need to increase focus on the opioid epidemic, specifically monitoring the use of prescription opioids. © 2022, Avestia Publishing. All rights reserved.

Analysis of Malfunctions & Injuries Attributed to CT Scanners Before and After the Pandemic

Given the stresses placed on healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the critical role of computed tomography (CT) scanners in diagnosing cancers and other disorders, this project is designed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported malfunctions, injuries (and deaths) attributed to CT scans. Data were extracted from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database. Yearly numbers of adverse event (AE) reports attributed to CT scanners including malfunctions, injuries, and deaths were recorded for the last 10 years (2012 to 2021). Monthly numbers of reports were also recorded for the 12 months immediately preceding the pandemic (2019/03 to 2020/03), as well as all the months after WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic (since 2020/03). It was found that the reported rates of injuries and malfunctions for CT scanners increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis also revealed unusual trends such as spikes in the malfunction rates from 2015 to 2018 compared to the preceding years, as well as in injuries and deaths. Manufacturers most responsible for these AE spikes included Philips, Superdimension, GE, Siemens, etc. The FDA Recall Database was further mined, and similar trends were identified in the yearly recalls over 2015- 2018, which correlated well with the malfunction rates (less apparent for injuries and deaths). While this project was originally centered around adverse pandemic-related effects on CT scanners, the important pre-pandemic findings warrant further research. These results might help prevent future AEs caused not only by CT scans but also by other medical devices. © 2022, Avestia Publishing. All rights reserved.

Cardiovascular Medical Device Failure: Using Five-Week Moving Averages To Assess Adverse Event Report Data

The COVID-19 pandemic had a variety of effects on the healthcare system, including the interruption of regular cardiology practices. We examined the pandemic’s effects on cardiovascular medical device failure by investigating trends in the number of reports of adverse events of several cardiovascular medical devices over the span of three years, including the first year of the pandemic. Specifically, we used data from the FDA’s MAUDE database, calculating the five-week moving average of adverse events associated with both implantable cardioverter defibrillators and coronary drug-eluting stents. We previously reported a 46% decrease in reported deaths attributed to ICDs and a 27% decrease in reported injuries attributed to coronary DES. We use a five-week moving average and confirm a 46% decrease in reported deaths attributed to ICDs, report a 9.8% increase in ICD-attributed malfunctions, and confirm a 27% decrease in reported injuries attributed to coronary DES. The different effects of the pandemic on these adverse event report trends, even within one device, show there are more factors to consider than explanations such as underreporting which would be expected to affect most medical devices relatively homogeneously. © 2022 Elsa S. Zhou and Sujata K. Bhatia.

REPORTED DEVICE FAILURE AND THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: CARDIOVASCULAR INTERVENTIONS

Regular cardiology practices were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. To better understand the pandemic's effects on cardiology practices, we investigated whether the pandemic affected reporting of cardiovascular medical device failure by examining whether adverse event reports per week attributed to different cardiovascular devices changed significantly during the pandemic. By using data from FDA's MAUDE database, we compared weekly rates of adverse event reports over the course of three years attributed to each of four devices: 'Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (Non-CRT)', 'Coronary Drug-Eluting Stent', 'Aortic Valve, Prosthesis, Percutaneously Delivered', and 'Heart Valve, Non-Allograft Tissue'. Specifically, we looked at trends per week for the adverse events 'Malfunction', 'Injury', and 'Death' for March 2018-March 2019, the pre-pandemic year of March 2019-March 2020, and the pandemic year March 2020-March 2021. We report a 46% decrease in reported deaths attributed to ICDs, a 27% decrease in reported injuries attributed to coronary DES, a 107% increase in reported deaths and a 45% increase in reported malfunctions attributed to percutaneous aortic valve prostheses, as well as a 27% decrease in reported injuries attributed to non-allograft tissue heart valves (all comparisons pandemic to pre-pandemic). That these four cardiovascular medical devices did not homogeneously increase or decrease suggests that changing care patterns that differently affected each device were the root of these trends, rather than a broader factor like underreporting which one would expect to affect the devices similarly. © 2022 by ASME

Compartmental Modelling Approach for Accessing the Role of Non-Pharmaceutical Measures in the Spread of COVID-19

Epidemic diseases are well known to be fatal and cause great loss worldwide—economically, socially and mentally. Even after around nine months, since the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread, people are getting infected all over the world. This is one of the areas where human medical advancements fail because by the time the disease is identified and its treatment is figured out, most of the population is already exposed to it. In such cases, it becomes easier to take steps if the dynamics of the disease and its sensitivity to various factors is known. This chapter deals with developing a mathematical model for the spread of Coronavirus disease, by employing a number of parameters that affect its spread. A compartmental modelling approach using ordinary differential equation has been used to formulate the set of equations that describe the model. We have used the next generation matrix method to find the basic reproduction number of the system and proved that the system is locally asymptotically stable at the disease-free equilibrium for R0<1. Stability and existence of endemic equilibrium have been discussed, followed by sensitivity of infective classes to parameters like proportion of vaccinated individuals and precautionary measures like social distancing. It is expected that after the vaccine is developed and is available to use, as the proportion of vaccinated individuals will increase, the infection will decrease in the population which can gradually lead to herd immunity. Since, the vaccine is still under development, non-intervention measures play a major role in coping with the disease. The disease generally transmits when the water droplets from an infected individuals’ mouth or nose are inhaled by a healthy individual. The best measures that should be adopted are social distancing, washing one’s hands frequently, and covering one’s mouth with mask, quarantine and lockdowns. Thus, as more and more precautionary measures are taken, it would gradually reduce the infection which has also been proved numerically by the sensitivity analysis of ‘w’ in our dynamical analysis. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Oral and maxillofacial surgery patient satisfaction with telephone consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic most oral and maxillofacial surgical (OMFS) units have moved to conducting patient consultations over the telephone. The aim of this study was to assess patients' satisfaction with telephone consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic. A retrospective survey was conducted of OMFS patients at our hospital who had telephone consultations between 1 April - 8 June 2020. The survey was conducted by independent interviewers and used the Generic Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale (G-MISS) along with a previously published additional questionnaire. Variables recorded included age, gender, theme of consultation, grade of clinician, and type of consultation. Statistical analysis was performed to assess for any differences between patient groups. The records of 150 consecutive patients were reviewed and 135 met inclusion criteria. A total of 109 patients completed the survey giving a response rate of 80.74%. The total G-MISS score for satisfaction was high, which indicates a high level of satisfaction among all patients. We found no statistical difference in satisfaction when comparing patients in terms of gender, age, theme of consultation, or level of clinician. A significant difference was found in compliance levels between review and new patients, with review patients demonstrating higher compliance levels (p=0.004). Overall, 83.48% of patients said they would be willing to have a telephone consultation in future. The majority of patients in this study reported high levels of satisfaction with telephone consultations. New patients reported lower levels of compliance which may suggest this type of consultation is less suited to telephone consultation.