INITIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL (10/29/13)

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Team Name: TRI-UMPH!

PROJECT:

PLATELET TEMPERATURE DETECTION SYSTEM-COOLER DESIGN

GROUP MEMBERS:

HAKIM AKHMAL ZAINAL ARIFFIN, BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, EXPECTED GRADUATION 2014

AHMAD ZULHILMI ABU BAKAR, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, EXPECTED GRADUATION 2014

AIREEN ZULAIKHA ABDUL AZIZ, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, EXPECTED GRADUATION 2014

_____________________________________________________________________________

Abstract

Our project is to develop a cooler that can automatically sort blood products into their specific compartments where each has different temperature. We decided to work on this project to tackle the problem in handling blood and platelet bags. It is very important to sort them right since platelets will degranulate and become nonviable once it is stored in cold temperature used for storing blood products. The possibility of making this mistake is greatly increased when medical workers are dealing with chaotic and panic situations such as emergency room where everything must be done very quickly. Each platelet bag costs around $500-$5000, and about 5-10 bags are wasted due to this handling error (VUMC statistics) per month. Thus, we approach this problem by increasing the efficiency in sorting these bags into the cooler. We implement the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology for sorting blood products into specific compartments. We also install ventilation system to maintain the gas transfer such as oxygen to ensure the viability of our blood and platelets. Below are the top three objectives of our project:-

·         To eliminate handling errors where platelet bags are often kept in wrong compartments due to stressful situation e.g., emergency/surgical room.

·         To reduce the amount of money loss due to wastage of nonviable platelets.

·         To increase the efficiency in sorting and keeping various blood products into their specific places.

______________________________________________________________________________

Proposal Narrative

We are designing a cooler that will be able to sort different types of blood bags into separate components. The need of such cooler came from the problem addressed by a medical personnel working Vanderbilt University Hospital’s blood bank. The cooler intended to reduce or possibly avoid human error when handling blood products. Three types of blood products we are dealing with are red blood cells (RBC), platelets and fresh frozen plasma (FFP). Each of these blood products needed to be maintained at certain temperature in order for them to be useable in surgery.

The table below describes the temperature at which every blood products needed to be kept and their shelf life. The shelf life refers to how long the blood products can be kept for them to be useable. The problem arises when doctors, surgeon, nurses or hospital stuffs accidently put the platelet bag inside the cooler, which specifically designed to keep RBC and FFP at low temperatures. This accidental error can cause the platelet to be degranulated and nonviable to be used in a surgery and considered to be wasted. Wasted platelet bags can cause 5 000USD-10 000USD loss, which is a serious amount of money. The cooler that we are designing will be able to accept all these blood products and sort them accordingly to specific compartment. Each compartment will be modified based on specific temperatures of each blood product.

Table 1: Storage temperature and shelf life of blood products.

The cooler will have a scanner to differentiate between each blood products, a sorting hinge to sort different blood products into specific compartment, lid hinges to keep each compartment closed, a ventilation system to maintain temperatures and air supply, pressure sensors to make sure the cooler only operates with the presence of blood products and batteries to supply power to the system. The cooler is not yet proven to work but it is technically feasible because it comprises of existing technologies from refrigerator, air conditioner, the nature design of human epiglottis and mail sorting machine.

We have not developed any prototype or proof of concept yet. We planned to consult medical doctors and engineering professors at Vanderbilt University to proof the concepts that we are proposing in our design. The sketch of our design is attached in the appendix.

Based on the sketch, the blood products will be inserted into the cooler through the scanner entrance. The scanner entrance is attached with scanners to detect specific type blood products based on the labeling. If the label indicates platelet bag, the sorting hinge will closed the blood compartment to allow the platelet bag to go into its compartment. By default, the blood compartment will always be closed and only will open if RBC or FFP is detected. RBC and FFP will share the same compartment because they can survive at the same temperature. This design of scanner, sorting compartments and sorting hinges is inspired by the nature of human epiglottis and mail sorting machine. Both compartments will be kept closed using lid hinges to maintain the specific temperatures. They will be opened based on the weight of the blood products. The pressure sensors at the bottom of the cooler are meant to detect the presence of blood products inside the cooler. The system will keep operating as long as the pressure sensors sense blood products’ weight on it. This can help to save the energy used by the system. Air ventilation system of the cooler is inspired by the design of a refrigerator and air conditioner to keep constant supply of oxygen and maintaining the specific temperature.

Nurses, surgeons, doctors and medical personnel can carry different types of blood products in a single case using the cooler without need to carry them separately inside different cases at different temperatures. Once the blood products’ bags have been used, they can be directly inserted into the cooler and allow the system to sort them accordingly into their temperature specific compartment. This system can significantly reduced human error and save more time during a hectic situation inside a surgical room. If the cooler can be implemented successfully, its most major impact would be saving of millions of US dollars nationwide from wastage of platelet products because a single platelet bag is worth 5000USD-10000USD and can only last form 5 days.

Our team consists of three undergraduate engineering students who will be graduating in May 2014. Our team is a multidisciplinary team consisting a student from each Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Mechanical Engineering discipline. Having team members from different engineering discipline can help generate better ideas to solve this problem. A Mechanical Engineering Student can apply his knowledge on designing sensor, ventilation and physical aspects of the cooler. A Biomedical Engineering student can relate his knowledge on the physiology and function of platelet and human body and at the same applying his knowledge on circuits to design the system. The Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Student can help to design a better system that include the calculation of mass and heat transfer of the ventilation system.

Dr. Garrett S. Booth, an Assistant Professor from Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center will be advising us in developing the project. Each member had been given specific role as follows. Each leader will initiate meetings and discussions regarding specific tasks. Ahmad Zulhilmi Abu Bakar (Mechanical Engineering), Leader of Technical Model Development-designing the mechanical bags sorting that will be installed in system and assisting in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) sensor control. Akhmal Hakim Zainal Ariffin (Biomedical Engineering), Leader of Business Model Development-managing our project operating costs estimation and marketing strategy and setting up meeitngs with potential customers. Aireen Zulaikha Abdul Aziz (Chemical Engineering), Leader of Safety Issues-directing the development of heat and mass transfer system and managing the temperature control of our design project and ensure our project can be safely used.

The market of blood products are limited to licensed health institutions, as blood transactions outside licensed institutions are illegal. The customers of our design would be health institutions that is looking to cut cost from wasted platelets due to medical personnel’s error in handling the blood products. Health institutions would lose up to 10000USD per platelet bag wasted, thus our technology should be very welcomed, as it would cut costs significantly.

The primary target market are health institutions that deal with blood products, especially the ones with busy trauma and surgery centers. At the moment, our main client is the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Blood Bank. We touched base with the Associate Medical Director Transfusion Medicine over the problems that they are having at the blood bank and would continue to discuss on the project in the future periodically.

There are no direct competitors in this market, except for Coleman coolers, which are much cheaper and easy to obtain in the market. Our design will be very helpful to be used by healthcare providers who deal with blood products. There is no other such product in the market. One can find temperature control stickers in the market that can be used to detect temperature of the platelet bag, but this will not help to reduce wastage of platelet because once the platelet has been detected at temperatures below room temperature, it cannot be used anymore. The cooler that we design will be a better solution because it prevents the platelet from damage and therefore can prevent waste of platelet products. On top of that, this product would be much easier to carry and transport, as it would eliminate the weight of ice in the coolers and have a more ergonomic design to it.

Our product would be an intellectual property of Vanderbilt University. Thus, we hope to establish a joint venture with Vanderbilt University. We can continue doing research and improving various aspects of the product and probably expand our line of productions based on this product on campus, without having to spend more money and effort on establishing our own research facility. We would also be able to continue working closely with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, our main client, if we form a joint venture with Vanderbilt University.

Table 2: Table of work plan

DUE DATES	TASKS
10/31/2013	Perform preliminary research and gather related information.
11/14/2013	Complete final discussion of design approaches, initial draft and project design schematic diagram.
11/21/2013	Finalized the schematic diagram complete with size dimensions, sensors, and    material types.
12/3/2013	Develop the sorting system for our cooler box. Program the coding and scanning system.
12/19/2013	Develop the temperature control for box compartments. Decide on the best insulators and conductors to help maintain the desired temperature.
1/5/2014	Design the ventilation system for our cooler box. Ensure that gas permeability is controlled and continuously supplied to platelets.
1/20/2014	Develop the power setting for our cooler box. Perform early testing to determine the amount of energy consumed during usage operation.
2/10/2014	Install all the temperature controllers, sensors, scanners and power controllers.
2/26/2014	Perform testing on prototype. Determine the efficiency of the operation.
3/15/2014	Perform safety testing on platelets. Ensure the platelets to still be viable under designated conditions.
3/27/2014	Improve the efficiency of prototype. Discussion on how to make the product design more practical and increase it commercial value.

Our design is considered successful when the platelet is still viable after been kept in the designed cooler box and at the same time, temperature of each box compartments can be maintained at the desired temperature. Another indication of success are the reduction of handling error that is solve by our sorting system and the willing of healthcare provider to use our design because of its user-friendly features.

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix

1.

Figure 1: A sketch of the cooler design

2. The cost to produce the prototype of the product would roughly be USD 1,000 to 1,500 (or even more, as it includes research). The prototype cost would be covered by the research fund. The expected cost for future production would be USD 500 per unit, as the most expensive component of the product would be its refrigerator, while the other components can be obtained and built relatively cheaply. In order to maintain its economical sustainability, as in to be able to continue its line of production and fund research to improve the product in the future, each product would be sold around USD 2,000. We would like to look into the possibility of using recycled materials and parts in the future as to reduce the production cost and sale price, and also to embrace the concept of environmental sustainability.

*note: the costs are very rough estimates as we are still in the conceptual stages of the design.

3. Resumes

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

AKHMAL HAKIM ZAINAL ARIFFIN

akhmal.h.zainal.ariffin@vanderbilt.edu

(615) 421-6263
VU Station B 351903, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235

EDUCATION Vanderbilt University – Nashville, TN
Major in Biomedical Engineering and Minor in Material Science

COURSES Human Physiology, Biotransport, Circuits, Biostatistics, Physics, Biomechanics, Biomaterials, Materials Science and Engineering, Bionanotechnology

EXPERIENCE Bionanotechnology Vanderbilt, Spring 2012
Design a nanothin film to separate lymphocytes from tissue for further analysis:

• Worked and shared ideas with a team member –wrote a paper and present a poster to BME graduate students

Got B for the presentation

Circuits II Laboratory Vanderbilt, Fall 2012
Design multiple type of circuits to meet specific requirement:

• Work together with a groupmate to design specific type of circuit
• Work with many circuit components such as resistor, transistor and capacitor.
• Previously learn the concepts in lectures

Got an A for the course

Introduction to Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) Vanderbilt, Fall 2011
Designed a LEGO car with lightest weight, ability to carry most weight and fastest speed:

• Worked on the design of the design with two other team members
• Designed car with high gear ratio

Won the competition among the coursemates.

National Robotic Competition High School, 2009

Designed LEGO robotic with art theme:

• Designed robot that able to dance synchronize with music

Receive Excellence Award Certificate in the competition

SKILLS Have basic knowledge and deep interest medicine and therapeutic bioengineering; willing to learn new stuff; proficient in R-Commander, LabVIEW (instrumentation) and Matlab (programming); extensive experience in Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point; can sketch very well by hand

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

AHMAD ZULHILMI ABU BAKAR

ahmad.z.abu.bakar@vanderbilt.edu

(615) 421-6263
VU Station B 351903, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235

EDUCATION Vanderbilt University – Nashville, TN
Major in Mechanical Engineering and Minor in Material Science

COURSES Mechanics of Materials, Materials Science 1, Strength and Structure of Engineering Materials, Introduction to Mechanical Engineering Design, Machine Analysis and Design, Introduction to Finite Element Analysis, Instrumentation Lab

EXPERIENCE Machine Analysis and Design Course Vanderbilt, Fall 2012
Designed a unique multi-legged search and rescue robot:

• Worked and shared ideas with a team member – sent a hand drawn sketch along with proposal report.
• Used Creo to design and assemble the robot – most of the parts were built from scratch.
• Wrote a comprehensive analytical report for the design – including the power, energy, torque, cost and the finite element analysis of the design.

Got an A- for the course

Introduction to Mechanical Engineering Design Vanderbilt, Spring 2011
Designed and build a catapult:

• Worked on the design of the catapult with four other team members
• Used tools, wood and PVC pipes to build the catapult

Passed the range and durability test for the design, and got an A for the course

Invention and Design Elective Course SPM 2009
Designed a trash disposal device:

• Prepared a comprehensive design portfolio – from concept ideas to final product design
• Built a model of the device – made out of steel, plastic, and modeling clay
• Presented the final article to a panel – improved communication and marketing skills

Got an A+ for the course in SPM (National general exam)

Malaysia Design Competition (National level) 2008
Designed a novel safety mat:

• Showcased creativity and innovative skills to come up with a novel design
• Prepared sketches of the design by hand
• Organized a short, detailed report for the submission

Got a participation certificate, and was acknowledged by the Invention and Design course instructor

SKILLS Have basic knowledge and deep interest in industrial mechanical design; willing to learn new stuff; proficient in Creo (CAD), Ansys Workbench (FEA), LabVIEW (instrumentation) and Matlab (programming); extensive experience in Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher and Power Point; can sketch very well by hand

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

AIREEN ZULAIKHA ABDUL AZIZ

aireen.z.abdul.aziz@vanderbilt.edu

(615) 710-5288
VU Station B 351901, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37235

EDUCATION            Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Bachelor of Engineering

Major: Chemical Engineering, May 2014 (expected graduation)

Minor: Chemistry

HONORS                   Vanderbilt University Dean’s List, Fall 2010

RELEVANT Design Machine Elements, Process Design, Engineering Economy Analysis, Fluid Mechanics,

COURSES Heat Transfer, Mass Transfer, Thermodynamics, Applied Behavioral Science, Organic Chemistry.

WORKING              Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University

EXPERIENCES Research Assistant

• Assisted in recording data and copying confidential surveys information of 150 middle school students.

LEADERSHIP         Alternative Energy Club 2013-2014

EXPERIENCES Vice President

• Highly involved in production of new renewable and eco-friendly energy sources.
• Improved quality of plant-based hand soap that was later distributed around campus washrooms.
  • Initiate, organize and delegate a group of volunteers to collect used French fries oils from campus dining to be used as our main source of biodiesel production
  • Helped increase number of club members.

American Institute Chemical Engineering (AIChe)

Class Representative (Sophomore Year), Fall 2012-Spring 2013

• Informed and kept a class of 60 Chemical Engineering students updated about latest AIChe   information and activities

ACTIVITIES Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) Regional Conference,March 2^nd 2013

• Built networking among companies and Science major students.
• Prepared self for upper managements skills and mentality.

Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science, Participant, Spring 2012

• Helped elementary school students in understanding Science theory through fun, simple experiments.

Muslim Student Association, Member, Fall 2010 – Spring 2014

• Promoted religious diversity on campus.

Vanderbilt Alternative Spring Break, Participant, Spring 2012

• Volunteered at kindergarten and Niles homes of special kids, food bank for homeless people

COMPUTER  SKILLS ASPEN, LoggerPRO, MATLAB, Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)