Clinical microsystems

Microchip arrays for parallel binding and detection of DNA or proteins for drug discovery and different clinical microsystems are under development [114]. 

QUALITY BY DESIGN. A CLINICAL MICROSYSTEMS APPROACH. NELSON, E. C., BATALDEN, R, GODFREY, M. M. 2007, JOSSEY BASS, SAN FRANCISCO. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF JOHN WILEY SONS, INC.). 

Mohr, J., Batalden, P. and Barach, P. (2004) Integrating patient safety into the clinical microsystem. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 13(Suppl. 2), ii34-ii38. 

Nelson, B.C., Batalden, P. and Godfrey, M.M. (2007) Quality by Design. A Clinical Microsystems Approach, Jossey Bass, San Francisco CA. 

An example of a clinical microsystem in an open-heart surgery unit would be a group that includes cardiologists, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, nutritionists, social workers, and others who routinely interact to care for heart patients. The fol-lowing steps, known as the Collaborative Communications Cycle, developed in consultation with a human factors expert, are repeated each day for each patient ... 

At the end of this chapter, some readers may wonder why we did not present one of the three most famous and beneficial neural prostheses that are in clinical use since several years the cardiac pacemaker, the cochlea implant and the urinary bladder stimulator of Brindley. In our view, the devices may not be considered microsystems. Only the electronic parts are built of monolithic integrated circuitry in silicon technology. The electrodes are still manufactured in a conventional way not reaching miniaturization levels that were presented here. 

The second example of integrated microsystems is for immunoassay [28,29, 47,48], Immunoassay is one of the most important analytical methods and is widely used in clinical diagnoses, environmental analyses, and biochemical studies because of its extremely high selectivity and sensitivity. Enzyme-linked immu-... 

Lorenzelli, L., Benvenuto, A., Adami, A. et al. (2005) Development of a gas chromatography silicon-based microsystem in clinical diagnostics. Biosens Bioelectron, 20 (10), 1968-1976. Zampolli, S., Ehni, I., Stiirmann J. et al. (2005) Selectivity enhancement of metal oxide gas sensors using a micromachined gas chromatographic column. Sens Actual B, 105 (2), 400-406. Bessoth, F.G., Naji, O.P., Eijkel, J.C.T. and Manz, A. (2002) Towards an on-chip gas chromatograph the development of a gas injector and a dc plasma emission detector. J Anal Atom Spectrom, 17 (8), 794-799. 

There is tremendous interest in the development of MEMS for medical applications. In the most general sense, MEMS refers to miniature components or systems that are fabricated using techniques that were originally developed by the microelectronics fabrication industry, and then modified for the production of microstmctures, micromachines, or microsystems such as sensors and actuators [108-110]. Currently, there are numerous research, development, and commercialization efforts underway to create high-performance clinical devices by exploiting the potential for size miniaturization and integration with microelectronics afforded by microfabrication and micromachining techniques [108, 111-114]. 

---