Today was awards day. The Medical Design Excellence awards recognise the achievements of medical product manufacturers, engineers, designers and clinicians who are responsible for groundbreaking innovations that “change the face of healthcare”. Encircle had been selected by the Medical Design Excellence programme as a breakthrough medical device for general hospital and therapeutic applications.

The awards programme started at 11am in the main hall and there was a great turn out of media, medical developers and distributors. Adjacent to the presentation area was a display presentation and exhibition of the winning medical devices.
This year’s winner included a range of very interesting and technical medical devices, from an automated external defibrillator, a propoint obturation point for use in root canal therapy, closed IV catheter system, vein viewer vascular imaging device, cranial Loop nonmetallic, cranial fixation device for postcraniotomy bone flap fixation, to a medical alert service with auto alert medical monitoring system to name a few. To view a full list of the winning products please visit:
http://www.canontradeshows.com/expo/awards/awards/index.php?catId=-1&year=2011&view=View

The MDEA programme is a very unique initiative and I believe its the only programme internationally that acknowledges the work and innovation undertaken with medical devices. MDEA represents a fantastic launching platform for new products and the exposure that we have had from attending the ceremony and through all of the media coverage has been significant to say the least.

Designer Blythe Rees-Jones of Locus Research visited New York recently to attend the Medical Design and Manufacturing MD&M East tradeshow and the Medical Design Excellence Awards MDEA. Encircle Compression Therapy, a new medical devices developed by Blythe Rees-Jones and the Locus and TMC team was awarded a winner of the 2011 Medical Design Excellence awards – so Blythe went to the East coast of America to see what impact this new medical technology could have in the country of the stars & stripes. This is the sixth of a series of posts about his experiences on the trip.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank  The Merino Company, Andy Wynne,  Delloch, Terry Vickers & Sean O'connor for supporting this trip.