John Lafferty

June 25, 2007
New Drug Dispensing Gun Pumps Multiple Meds

The Dragon Drug gun is a promising new patent-pending medical device utilizing pre-formatted disposable drug cartridges to save lives, time, medication and syringes, while decreasing human error. 

Designed by anesthesiologist Dr. John Lafferty of Miami, Florida, the Dragon Drug gun was originally intended for emergency personnel. "I invented the Dragon to pump multiple drugs very rapidly into patients to save their lives," states Lafferty. "It's small and portable, so it can be used anywhere-by medics in Iraq, by doctors in the ER and the OR, or by EMTs at a car crash," says Lafferty. "In a triage situation with large numbers of sick or injured patients, the Gun will increase staff efficiency, since it can administer up to 6 drug cartridges from a single dispensing system. Because the Gun records the timing and dosage of meds, it's easy to track the medications given without having someone do that manually. This means that a relatively small number of medical personnel can treat a large number of patients with less risk of human error."

The Dragon Drug gun will become essential in even the most common medical emergencies. Here is an example: after a competitive tennis game, a 55-year-old man suddenly collapses. When the EMS team arrives, an electrocardiogram (ECG) reveals a cardiac arrhythmia necessitating multiple emergency medications to be dispensed via numerous syringes and requiring an EMT to notate each medication by name and dosage. With a Dragon Drug gun, a single Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) cartridge inserted into the Gun would rapidly administer the correct medicines in sequential order, while automatically recording what the patient has been given.

In addition to a manual operating model, Lafferty created a model capable of automatic and programmable medication delivery to be used in non-emergency settings, such as anesthesia delivery in the operating room, and in plastic surgery, veterinary medicine, or dentistry.

Dr. Lafferty's next goal is to find a company that can take the Dragon Drug Gun to the next level. "The Dragon will be an incredible asset to medical personnel in virtually every setting. I look forward to getting it into the hands of those who need it the most."

For an online demo visit : www.dragondruggun.com.

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