Dexcom G6 uses a small, wearable sensor and transmitter to continuously measure and send glucose levels wirelessly to a smart device or receiver, giving patients real-time glucose data without the need for a fingerprick. Dexcom’s unique technology also gives patients the ability to share their glucose readings with up to 5 followers.

Health Canada temporarily authorized the Dexcom G6 system for expanded use in hospitals, to help remotely monitor those who are critically ill during the COVID-19 pandemic. This will reduce caregiver interactions and exposure to COVID-19 in the hospital setting and help to preserve personal protective equipment.

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Hillrom has been working around the clock to ensure health care providers receive the equipment they need during this challenging time. Though demand has been substantial, regional teams across Canada are meeting the challenge head on.

Getting product into the hands of caregivers has never been more important; therefore, the company has ramped up the production of critical products and Hillrom representatives are preparing, servicing and delivering large orders at an unprecedented rate. Whether it’s a fleet of Progressa® beds for ICUs or an order of Connex® Spot Monitors to conduct frontline screening and diagnosis, the Hillrom team is doing everything they can to support frontline caregivers in their amazing work of treating an elevated number of patients.

Hillrom has fulfilled many large orders across the country to assist with the COVID-19 effort – and the image is just one example. It’s the resolve and determination of the entire Hillrom team, and their collaboration with health care providers, that facilitates the success of these deliveries.

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Southmedic is a Barrie, Ontario-based medical device manufacturer that distributes to more than 80 countries around the world.

The government of Ontario is providing $1.8 million to help the company reengineer and retool its current production and purchase new moulding equipment.

With this new equipment, the company will double its output of oxygen masks, triple its output of ETCO2 masks, which are specialty masks used to monitor breathing prior to ventilator use, and quadruple its output of eye and face shields to help meet the province’s need for PPE. The funding will also allow the company to reorganize its production facility to allow for physical distancing.

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Canadian-based medical equipment distribution company, The Stevens Company, is using its vast experience and international network of suppliers to play a key role in the Canadian fight against COVID-19.

With six distribution centres across the country, Stevens is currently fulfilling federal government contracts for hard surface cleaners, shoe covers and other items related to COVID-19, including special bags for the safe disposal of bio-hazardous material.

Stevens sells only to Canadian customers: governments, hospitals, physicians, care homes, and even veterinarians. Having those trusted, long-standing relationships in China, India, Australia, the United States and Canada gave the company a head start when pressure for more equipment began to intensify.

The Stevens warehouse hours have increased during the pandemic to accommodate an influx of extra orders for gloves, masks, gowns, alcohol and disinfectants.

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Several of the world’s ventilator manufacturers have formed a Ventilator Training Alliance (VTA) and partnered with Allego to create a mobile app that frontline medical providers can use to access a centralized repository of ventilator training resources.

Dräger, GE Healthcare, Getinge, Hamilton Medical, Medtronic, Nihon Kohden, and Philips have joined this humanitarian training coalition.

The VTA app — powered by learning and readiness platform provider Allego — connects respiratory therapists, nurses and other medical professionals with ventilator training resources from alliance member companies, including instructional how-to videos, manuals, troubleshooting guides, and other ventilator-operation expertise critical to helping responders treat patients suffering from COVID-19-related respiratory distress.

LifeSciences BC (LSBC) launched an integrated COVID-19 Response Program in March. In response to the challenges faced by the emerging and growing presence of COVID-19, stakeholders from across the Life Sciences community were coming forward to offer the assistance of products, services, supplies, etc. While these initiatives were representative of the commitment, generosity, and leadership of many within the sector, they were uncoordinated and ran the risk of not being effective.    

As a result, LSBC took on a leadership role to coordinate the activities on behalf of the broad Life Sciences stakeholder group. There were five COVID-19 Response workstreams to address gaps and excess capacity in various supply chains. The five workstreams represented the following areas: PPE & Products/Supplies, People & Services, Clinical Trials, Laboratories, and Manufacturers. The workstreams were led by leaders from the Life Sciences community.

Working with the CDL (Creative Destruction Labs), tools were developed to consolidate offers of needs and requests of assistance.   As the organization received offers and requests, they were recorded and handled through matching and redeployment or redirection to appropriate channels.

A collaboration platform (Slack Workspace) was also been set up to facilitate community engagement as well as expeditious communication and action.   

m-Health Solutions (mHS) in Hamilton, Ontario has been providing virtual and mobile cardiac diagnostics and monitoring since 2010. With COVID-19, m-Health Solutions quickly pivoted to meet the needs of doctors/clinics/hospitals and patients.

As holter departments in hospitals across Ontario closed, mHS established an on-line portal so that doctors virtually seeing patients from their homes could quickly and securely refer patients and receive reports back.

Devices were shipped directly to patients for a hook-up. Virtual assistance was provided by the mHS team. Hospitals quickly realized that the “walking well” patients coming to hospital for services has greatly changed. mHS has now established long-term contracts for continued virtual services with many hospitals in Ontario. CorHealth, in a March 31st memo, also recognized the need for alternative settings for cardiac diagnostics. They strongly encouraged that remote/home Electrocardiogram (ECG) Holter Monitoring applications should be used to support the detection of atrial fibrillation in stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) patients. mHS was an organization that was identified that can provide this level of service.

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Roche’s new Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test now available in Canada is designed to help determine if a patient has been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and if the patient has developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Public Health, hospital and private laboratories are able to run the Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 serology test on Roche’s cobas e analyzers, which are already widely available across Canada, and in each province. These fully automated systems can provide Anti-SARS-CoV-2 test results in approximately 18 minutes, with a test throughput of up to 300 tests/hour, depending on the analyzer.

This test is a complement to Roche’s existing molecular cobas® SARS-CoV-2 test, authorized under Health Canada’s Interim Order, which detects the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 with the company’s automated, high-throughput cobas 6800/8800 platforms. Roche also supplies other SARS-CoV-2 test solutions that are made available for lower volume testing on the MagNA Pure and LightCycler systems (Research Use Only) and the company continues to work on expanding its portfolio of COVID-19 test solutions. 

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BioNova is guiding east coast manufacturers through Health Canada’s process of regulatory approval. BioNova is part of a stakeholder advocacy group that’s providing companies with all the necessary documents to produce the PPE and has engaged a local regulatory consultant to make submissions to Health Canada.

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Getinge AB is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of medical ICU ventilators and other life-saving equipment. To address hospital ICU needs, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization has increased ventilator production capacity, by 160% or 26,000 units. These ventilators are being deployed in ICUs around the world, including Canadian hospitals.

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