MGA is an organization trying to collectively industrialize 3D printing.Member organizations can be service bureaus, machine builders, materials companies or users.All work together on breaking down the barriers towards affordable 3D printing in spec, at scale.
MGA started in railway, with many rail companies making up the backbone of the group.The Dutch, Austrian, and German railways, together with state and citywide transport systems, worked with train companies such as Siemens and Alstom to make 3D printing work within the standards, requirements, and cost levels needed for rail.Since then, the group has expanded to many more transport companies, and the organization itself has expanded as well.
Naomi Nathan is the head of MGA Medical, and she wants to make 3D printing barriers melt in the medical realm.To do so, she is assembling a group of medical device, 3D printing, and materials firms to work with researchers, hospitals, and universities.She’s also helping to organize EHFAM, which is a Basel-based medical 3D printing and innovation congress taking place the 26th and 27th of June.
That show will welcome researchers, policy makers, and AM experts to delve into 3D printing for healthcare. Naomi is looking forward to the conference, which brings together likeminded people who are interested in finding out where the edge of the possible is in healthcare and 3D printing.Naomi herself first became a medical doctor before branching out into healthcare policy.After working at the WHO, ASHPHER, and in many other public policy and technical expert roles in healthcare delivery, she has a solid background and career in the policy and public health domains.
Now she hopes to unify this with a growing understanding of 3D printing.Naomi first went for public health over private practice as a doctor because she wanted to tackle problems at the systemic level.She loved the policy aspects and impact of public health.
Now she wants to do more of the same, looking at the “life of the patient and how it is impacted by the health system, engaging and managing stakeholders to make Additive Manufacturing technology more effective in that context.” Naomi is interested in “all stakeholders, everyone in the AM ecosystem…materials, institutions, device makers, regulators, consultancies, policymakers.” “Right now we have to do more to reach the health systems themselves and look at what their problems are.How can Additive Manufacturing make an impact? We need to take a different approach, we can’t keep creating a solution and then looking for a problem.We have to reach out to users, have them indicate what the problems are and then work with stakeholders to find a solution.” Some of the things Naomi is working on include partnering with users to take out harmful PFAS materials from products.
Hospital 3D printing labs are also a fruitful area.She likes that in these labs, people are working to perfect 3D printing for their patients.Users there are evaluating materials, questioning what the materials do, and questioning how to make devices and models out of them.
Point-of-care 3D printing is seeing a lot of experimentation and innovation.Naomi also sees a need to look deeper into subjects like quality management systems (QMS).When should you use a QMS, when do you need more, and how do you implement one? Her group will be authoring a white paper on the subject.
Most of MGA Medical’s activity will take place in working groups.Here, she is bringing together 3D printer manufacturers, users, and researchers to solve real world problems.MGA Medical currently has three working groups, where members can discuss things more generally, but also look at what problems each of them have.
Matchmaking can bring about a lot of solutions here.Naomi is specifically looking for surgeons, cardiologists, material providers, and device firms now to join MGA Medical.She’s also doing a lot of work with biocompatibility, since the materials are so limited for additive.
Across polymers, metals, and ceramics, and all 3D printing technologies, MGA Medical is looking holistically at the market. Naomi thinks that, “We have started the discussion between healthcare professionals and AM and bringing professionals into the world of AM.Sharing the best practices in the AM space and doing workshops, we have to advance AM in theory in practice and implementation.” Naomi also will look at healthcare standards and the developing regulatory landscape.She thinks that the team can make a real difference in “communicating value in the language that healthcare systems understand…cool, you 3D printed a thing, it’s new, but where is the value?” Ideally, she would like to “bring in the whole healthcare system, working at the policy level but also on really practical things.” She wants to look at current applications and medical products, investigating how they got there and then learning how to standardize and “help 3D printing get to that point of impact, make it a technology that is trusted.” She says that “many believe that the future of healthcare is personalized, but the quality has to be assured and sustained to make access to personalized healthcare better.” Naomi thinks that EHFAM is an integrated part of that approach.
The conference will move to another city each iteration, and in so doing, show off all the regional 3D printing hubs for the medical sector across Europe.The conference will bring together researchers from across the region to share their practices and the state of the art.The conference has one track, and wants to be the “stage for 3D printing in medicine.” I really think that MGA has been doing a fantastic job of bringing together disparate people, companies, and interests.
Uniting very different players and forging a common goal for them has really furthered 3D printing as a technology.But even more importantly, MGA focuses not on buzzwords or absurdly simple visions, but on practical impediments to 3D printing.I can’t wait to see what kind of an ongoing impact Naomi and her team can make in medical 3D printing with the same drive and mindset.
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