Heading to Autodesk University 2016 in Las Vegas? I will be presenting Using CAD & 3D Printing to Revolutionize Healthcare. Here is a little background on the presentation.

I currently work as a Lead Simulation Specialist at a healthcare organization in Los Angeles, CA. In addition to helping educate clinical workers such as nurses and physicians, I also am an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-I) and a Certified Healthcare Simulation Operations Specialist (CHSOS). I am actively involved in CAD design and 3D printing within the organization. I have been involved with numerous research studies utilizing prototype development and patient specific medical devices.

Fusion 360 from is an easy to learn, powerful, and feature-packed CAD design software.  When first evaluating software to enable our 3D program to grow, we looked at multiple companies and software suites but ultimately decide on Fusion 360 due to the ease of getting started, low cost, and features included.

In an effort to improve realism in clinical simulation and training, many healthcare organizations contract with outside companies to design and produce needed equipment and supplies. However, there are now resources that allow for this process to be brought in-house from CAD design to 3D printing of prototypes. Having tools such as Fusion 360 has enabled users with little to no background in CAD to produce high quality, highly realistic training models for use in a simulation training environment.

The Endoscopic Trainer (pictured above) was developed in conjunction with a team of surgeons who wanted to bring more realistic trainers to use with medical residents. Starting with a rough drawing, I was able to not only design, but prototype a training model that is now being used with all new medical residents in the healthcare organization. Being able to display and share the design with the team allowed for a quick turnaround time. Using the mobile app feature we were able to collaborate directly with the end-users, and 3D printing the prototypes was made possible by Fusion360.

There are many applications for healthcare that stand to benefit with this process being used in an organization by trained staff.

Hope to see you at AU 2016!