Artificial limb service uses 3D printing and new PMS

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Peke Waihanga Artificial Limb and Orthotic Service is using 3D scanning and printing in its prosthetic service and has gone live with a patient management system from ServiceNow.

Peke Waihanga provides prosthetics to every amputee in New Zealand who needs one and is using 3D scanning and printing to take its prosthetic service to the community.

New 3D printing technology allows them to scan the stump, or the inside or a plaster mould, of someone who has lost a limb and then 3D print the socket of their new prosthesis.

Peke Waihanga chief executive Sean Gray says previously, someone needing a prosthetic would have to visit one of their six centres nationwide several times: to be measured, have a plaster cast made, and then – once a fibreglass or carbon fibre socket had been made from the cast, to have the limb fitted and adjusted.

Someone in Northland would have to drive three hours to Auckland for these appointments.

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“We have invested in a mobile bus workshop, so for those patients that already have 3D printed sockets, that are fitting well, we can deliver them in the community by reprinting them,” explains Gray.

The organisation partnered with the design school at Victoria University on the 3D printing project, which was partly funded via the Ministry of Health’s digital enablement fund.

In 2022, approximately 40 percent of sockets for lower extremity limbs were fabricated with a 3D printer. The service has moved into using it for upper extremity prosthetics and are doing almost twice the number of 3D printed enabled devices in 2023.

Peke Waihanga also became the first health care provider in New Zealand to implement ServiceNow’s Healthcare and Life Sciences module on July 3.

“Our business is unique because we do clinical services, procurement, stock supply, and individualised medical device manufacturing services,” says Gray.

“We have moved from the provision of a widget towards a wraparound model of care and there is a huge cost of coordination in that as we now employ physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and nurses, so it is a real integrated care model and we needed a completely integrated software product.”

Gray says 150 staff are using the new patient, service and case management system and he is expecting a 20 to 30 percent increase in clinical utilisation.

“There will be operating efficiencies from having people in the right place at the right time and allowing people to focus on the key elements of the job, rather than on administration,” he says.

“It will also automate our workflows from a stock procurement manufacturing point of view and enable the use of real time dashboards so we can make more timely decisions to support the team.

“This will mean better outcomes for the patient, better use of limited funding and reduce the workload stress on the team.”

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