Project: AeroPod 15 is a ‘gas tight’ device developed by BBL Protect Ltd to transport patients with biological or chemical hazards via land or air.
It was developed during the Covid pandemic for the movement of infectious patients within the hospital environment, or by transport, whilst protecting healthcare staff as well as the immediate environment.
The features and design of the AeroPod 15 required testing with the end users to ensure it was fit for purpose and met clinical and NHS requirements.
How we helped:
We brokered and supported an industry and NHS partnership, with funding from the Academic Health Science Network North East and North Cumbria, to facilitate an end user design and evaluation of the product.
Our collaboration aimed to evaluate the new product for the transport of patients with hazardous conditions such as high consequence infectious diseases or chemical contamination.
Clinical experts from infection prevention and control, infectious diseases and internal medicine at Newcastle Hospitals, joined BBL Protect Limited and the hazardous area response team from the North East Ambulance Service to conduct two real world evaluations of the AeroPod 15 in February and May 2022.
We provided verbal and written feedback, in the form of a survey, on the attributes and functionality of the product to assess its fitness for purpose.
Outcome: Comments, suggestions and information from testing the device with other equipment regularly used by our medical teams informed the design of components on AeroPod 15.
Changes were made to the product as a direct result of the first collaboration and were assessed further in the second evaluation.
The findings of the evaluations were included in the design of the device and the manufacture of the product, which is due for market launch early 2023.
