HOSPEX – Tokyo 2018 Hospital Expo
While wandering the world and studying healthcare on a budget, you can’t pass up an opportunity to attend a free conference in Japan! I attended HOSPEX for 3 days and got to see many different devices for hospitals, fitness, and nutrition in a country that will have to lead the world in elderly population management. As far as I could tell, I was the only American and definitely the only one wearing hiking shoes! (The shoes are black so I think they passed as dress shoes…) Enjoy!
One of the big challenges that faces Japan is its aging population and fewer births due to economic and social concerns. This is a common theme through many developed countries of the world, but Japan has some of the oldest population and will be a true leader in the crisis of how to effectively deal with the increased elderly. Japan is typically a conservative country but this issue has profound impacts on the economy and society so Japan is taking drastic, and necessary, measures to address this issue.
One of the conferences I attended in Japan was HOSPEX 2018 held at the Tokyo Big Sight conference building. This conference was a free expo that showcased health and hospital solutions from big companies all the way to lone researchers. The themes I gathered were “how do we keep our population living healthier longer” and “how do we better care for our elderly with limited personnel.” Here are a few of the products I observed at the conference!
Note: There was a little bit of a language barrier and Google Translate does not work that well for Japanese so I apologize for any slight errors in my interpretation but this should be mostly accurate. (Unfortunately my Japanese doesn’t go much beyond oishii…)
Exoskeleton Suit
I have a friend who loves exoskeleton suits so I couldn’t resist trying one out. This is a passive exoskeleton suit that can be used to assist you with lifting objects. There were different sizes with different weight ranges that they can assist with.
Uses: assist lifting elderly/patients when they fall and hopefully prevent user back injuries (this is how my aunt hurt her back when she was young and still lives with the pain).
Green Tea – Diabetes
This one would be really cool to look into more. The claim is that the components in the tea bind to receptors in your digestive track that sugar usually binds to. So instead of a spike in glucose after a meal you have a more prolonged sugar increase that helps diabetics manage their blood sugar better.
Uses: Reduce sugar spikes in diabetic patients to better manage diabetes.
Muscle Stimulation for Swallowing
This one was interesting and what I would classify more towards a torture device than therapeutic. It claims to help elderly patients who can no longer swallow by training their throat and stomach muscles with stimulation for approximately half hour sessions.
The reason I say torture may be more how they presented it at the conference. You lay down and stimulation patches are placed on your throat and stomach. You lay there for the full therapy time and the booth attendants keep turning up the electrical stimulation power every few minutes. I believe the people working the booth were more interested in seeing the pain threshold of the unfortunate volunteers and to determine how high they could turn it up before volunteers gave up. Each time they turn it up your stomach and throat muscles convulse and contort more wildly. It was not enjoyable. As the only American at this conference it was my responsibility to represent the US well by not backing down (strength is important in most Asian cultures). I did not get to the highest level, but I also did not make our country look weak!
I think my big takeaway from this is to make sure you understand what you are putting patients through with your treatments.
Uses: Strengthen swallowing muscles through electrical stimulation of stomach and throat. Or torture…
Turning Hospital Beds
I really loved how simple this hospital bed was. I assume this is the same that we have in the US but still cool to see! Bed sores can be a real problem and having a bed that assists nurses in turning patients can be pretty helpful. I saw some nasty bed sores in the Philippines earlier in my travels so anything to help prevent these is really beneficial!
Uses: Assist in Turning Patients to Prevent Bed Sores
Grip Assist
This one is a glove you wear with tension wires to help you grip objects. When you try to grab an object, the device senses this and provides extra support by retracting the wires in the fingertips. When you release your grip the tension in the wires release allowing you to open your hand again.
Uses: Help patients with low grip strength better grip objects.
Optical Tracking System
Optical tracking is a technique used in manufacturing to assist root cause investigations into why non-compliant parts or product failures occur. It is cool seeing these techniques adapted to the hospital setting! An issue with surgeries has always been the prevention of infections. Surgical tools are sterilized, doctors do their best to maintain a sterile operating field, and operating rooms are designed to minimize air contamination. So what is the cause when a patient gets an infection?
This technique is used to individually track surgical equipment through optical tracking using infrared sensors. Each tool has a specific tag that can be read by the optical system. This allows tracking at the tool level so you can monitor if there are trends in infection for a particular tool or batch of tools being sterilized together. This information can then inform about potential problem areas that may need to be addressed to prevent future infections.
Uses: Tracks surgical equipment to assist with infection control.
Biodegradable Bed Pans
My takeaway from this one was that you could use the bedpans on the right in the machine on the left to breakdown the materials. To be honest though, the persons in this booth didn’t speak English well so I may have misinterpreted what was being gestured…
Uses: So you don’t have to clean bed pans? I’m not as familiar with waste management in healthcare settings.
And Robots!
You wouldn’t be in Japan without seeing robots! With a shortage of healthcare workers what better way to address healthcare needs than having robots taking care of patients!
Below is one of the robots I was told to check out. It can wheel around and sense parameters of patients such as temp, C02, moisture, etc. It has video and audio which allow direct communication with a clinician.
In Japan, robots are generally more accepted and there have even been ethical debates on robot rights in relation to artificial intelligence. In the USA, I am not sure what patients would think about having robots instead of humans checking up on them…
Uses: Remotely monitor and communicate with patients
Here was a taste of HOSPEX 2018! Hope you enjoyed it!