Auction, page-17

It’s my understanding the burette can be sold in the Victorian public hospital network too under the HPV contract awarded to MLA in the March quarter.

I was lucky enough to meet the inventor (Angelo Maltabes) at the last two MLA annual company meetings. He continues to fight the good fight with MLA for getting hospitals in Australia to use this device.

So why no traction? For many years I’ve never completely understood why it wasn’t succeeding when the benefits of using it are substantial. I came away from last year’s meeting with some insights.

There are three main reasons - infusion pumps, cost and inertia. Below is some further detail on each -
(1) Infusion pumps - The burette has some great features. A couple are -
a) Once the fluid runs out the float and valve mechanism shuts the line so that no air can get in to the IV set causing an embolism and potentially killing the patient; and
b) When the bolus medication being delivered finishes the burette automatically switches to KVO (saline) eliminating nurses time to manually switch the feed.

However, the latest infusion pumps can detect air in the line and can switch to the KVO infusion automatically. Infusion pumps actually eliminate the need for burettes in many cases (though they are often still used as a precaution). In some ways this burette can be thought of as being in competition with these pumps. The large multinationals have poured considerable technology into their pump technology and they are here to stay.

(2) Cost - The health system and hospitals are trying to cut costs wherever they can and stretch their health dollar further. There are some great features with this burette, but they come at a price premium. Often it is bureaucrats in charge of costs and purchasing - not the doctors and nurses using the product. I’ve heard the story of one hospital not wanting to even consider this burette if it was even two cents dearer than the current “dumb” burettes they were using.

(3) Inertia - Hospitals are often slow to change their clinical procedures. It takes a lot of time and effort to win clinical acceptance. This not only happens on a hospital-by-hospital basis, but at a clinical specialist basis. It is hard to drive change and it is resource hungry.

Sometimes a change in personnel can set everything back to square one. Some years ago a deal on this burette with a multinational was close. The key person in the multinational then moved on from their position at the critical time and everything was ultimately lost.

I have always had a keen interest in this burette over many years and wanted it to succeed - it deserves to. It’s impressive that a device costing $11 has some of the features of a infusion pumps costing thousands.

I hope they get there too.

PS - No cross promotion is intended.