The incident originated during an off-campus expert medical consultation event, where I was performing electrocardiogram (ECG) examinations for participants. Midway through the procedure, the ECG machine suddenly malfunctioned. After contacting the staff, I was informed that the system was undergoing an update—consequently, examinations could not be completed for all participants that day. (Multiple rounds of WeChat voice calls were required to summon assistance—a process that struck me as rather unprofessional.)
Within the hospital setting, such issues occur relatively infrequently—likely because hospital or departmental head nurses routinely inspect and maintain equipment. Nevertheless, in daily practice, I still occasionally encounter challenging situations involving medical devices. For instance, during the resuscitation of a critically ill patient, we were performing a central venous catheterization via the internal jugular vein when the patient—on mechanical ventilation via face mask—vomited. Because this was not detected promptly, aspiration occurred. Setting aside clinical technique and physician expertise per se, is there perhaps a far-fetched yet intriguing possibility: could some more advanced device exist that would either predict or immediately detect such events? For example, a transparent sterile drape—or a face mask capable of detecting aspiration…
Motivated by this question, I conducted a quick search to see whether China has any dedicated platforms or software facilitating direct communication between healthcare professionals and medical device companies. I found very few such platforms; most are regional management systems. While Apple’s App Store does host U.S.-developed applications for this purpose, they are largely unsuited to the Chinese clinical environment.
I’ve long admired the “Shi Tu” (Starting Path) platform. As a student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, I truly appreciate it. If we could take action in this area—or if fellow students could further discuss it—or even if younger students reading this might consider developing it as a university-level innovation project—that would be wonderful. As a third-year graduate student, however, I may no longer have the capacity to lead such an initiative. That’s all. 