The problem of accessibility to conventional ventilators, especially for health facilities that are limited due to resources is the reason behind Dayo Olakulehin the innovation of the D-box ventilator.
Dayo Olakulehin is a medical doctor whose focus on solving tomorrow’s problems today with the use of innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, leadership development, makes him outstanding.
The genesis of the D-box ventilator was traced to an awful experience Dayo had at the hospital. He said, “I had manually ventilated a 5-year-old boy for four hours and at about 2 am, I fell asleep, only to be awakened by the boy’s father.
“If the child had continued without ventilation for longer than four minutes, it could have resulted in irreversible brain damage. “This experience was common among hospital staff at LUTH and other medical facilities. It was after one of such incidents the idea for an alternative ventilation method came to my mind”
The innovative Dayo went in search of the development of his newly found idea- D-box. It cost him three years after that experience, to develop the D-box.
An appropriate description of Dr Dayo’s D-box is an improvement of CPR.
“What we used to have is that a doctor manually compressed the CPR bag. What we have done is to move that job to the D-box.” It simply brings eas and speed to doctors duties. It allows doctors to pay attention to other critical needs of the patient
Dayo was soon faced with challenges. Firstly, the medical doctor wasn’t a biomedical engineer and secondly, he needed to raise funds to execute his proposed idea. He said, “I knew having the idea was not sufficient, I needed to find a way to make it a reality. I knew nothing about business, patenting or developing innovations.
“I went online looking for help, and I found a course on Healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. This course taught me how to develop a patent. I approached a number of medical device companies and found out it was a lot easier to sell a product than to sell an idea.”
As days rolled into months, the persistent Dayo got patent for his innovation.
D- the box is portable, cheaper and easier to handle. While the big teaching hospitals have 5-6 units of ventilators that are electricity-dependent and sensitive, the D-box can work on battery power for 8-12 hours. It’s an amazing breakthrough in the medical world.
