Desafios dos laboratórios de impressão 3D na produção de dispositivos de saúde para apoio ao enfrentamento da pandemia da COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic of COVID-19 brought a challenge in the agile development of products that could effectively meet the needs of the national health system. Part of the demand was met by innovation support laboratories, highlighting those that made use of three-dimensional technologies and 3D printing. This dissertation presents a discussion about the challenges in the manufacturing of health products achieved through 3D printing in different Brazilian laboratories and companies that made use of 3D printing technologies during the period of the pandemic. To this end, a qualitative research was conducted through in-depth interviews with the people responsible for these laboratories and environments. The interview script was composed of open questions and the data collected were submitted to content analysis using the NVivo software resulting in 44 themes of analysis that were grouped into 7 categories and 31 thematic subcategories divided into 3 major blocks: (i) categorization of the environment; (ii) performance of the environment before the pandemic and (iii) performance of the environment during the pandemic. The present study innovated by exploring the theme from the perspective of distinct 3D prototyping environments located in different regions of Brazil. We found that the comparative analysis of these environments and their respective implementations of changes and adaptations during the pandemic response period for 3D prototyping of new healthcare supplies brought new perspectives for the promotion of technological advancement and new means of interaction with government, companies, and citizens. In terms of performance, laboratories in the Northeast, despite starting their activities in the health area after the pandemic, were able to register new patents and put these devices on the market in a short period of time and attributed their performance to collaboration between public and private sectors, especially governments, universities, and industries. Innovation environments in the south-southeast remained with the same research and devices as pre-pandemic healthcare, did not develop new products or patents, and were limited to replicating faceshields already available in repositories. The study showed the importance and benefits of collective and organized actions by public and private power, which, when well-organized and managed, impact the performance of these environments and technological advancement through the emergence of new products. Moreover, from the interviewees' perspective, new understandings and directions for future research agendas within and outside the health area were identified. As a limitation of the study, the size and geographical distribution of the sample is cited. Because it was a period of research and data collection that still required the physical isolation of much of the population, the interviews were conducted virtually, and access to laboratories in loco was restricted to those located in the northeastern region. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]