This series of write up is by Tee Chian, Expedio’s Technical Director and also the main lead for this project/ initiative. Throughout this duration, he plans and coordinates all the material, suppliers, fabrication, liaising with hospitals and the delivery of the project.
If you’ve been following the past few write-ups, by now you would be aware that the face shield productions are already up and running, and many design bodies and maker spaces are helping out in that area. What’s the next thing in the most needed list then? Well, it would be the intubation box.
An intubation box is a transparent cover placed over a patient during the process of intubation. It is when a sickle like device is slid into your throat and they put the endotracheal tube (ET) in so that you can be hooked up to a ventilator. I guess the box creates an additional barrier between the patient and the doctor during the process. It was made famous by a Taiwanese doctor Dr. Hsien Yung Lai when he put his design online.
Dr Hsien's original design, with standard delivery method (1 box wrapped up).
How did we get into this? I have no idea. I think it started when people were asking for it over chat groups and online. We had one request so I asked my good buddy to go into factory to build one. He had a request too, so we thought, let’s try this out.
Expedio’s intubation box, 5 units nested together.
In expedio design, we are a team with an itchy backside. The design was given, but we are always not happy and will try to scrutinize it. The box was huge and took up a lot of space. We did try to make it flat pack but that didn't turn out well because it wasn't rigid enough. So we decided the least we could do is make it save space during transport, logistics and storage. So we tweaked the design slightly and made it nest. While other people were delivering in square boxes, stacking one by one, we decided to change things around. To date, I think we can claim that we are probably the 1st in making an intubation box that can nest. This would probably help when hospitals need to store this when it is not in use.
Delivered to University Malaya (UM) Hospital.
We have manufactured 70 of such boxes and have the capacity to build in quite high volumes. We were even lucky enough to obtain the necessary papers to run the manufacturing. March on front liners... we're here to help wherever we can.
