Medical devices may be used during internal operations on a patient. During these operations, bodily fluids, such as blood, and/or tissue may come into contact with the medical device. Once blood and/or tissue come into contact with the medical device, the device may lose its sterility and may be contaminated. In general, medical devices may be constructed with little consideration for the potential of disassembly since the medical devices may be designed to be disposed of once contaminated after a single use. In some instances where portions may be made to be removable, they may generally consist of disposable parts for the device that detach to be thrown away before a new disposable part is used for a new patient. For some medical instruments lacking disposable parts, they may generally either be only used once or may need to be entirely resterilized before reuse.
With the advancement of the electronics industry, medical devices may be adapted to contain most, if not all, of the required components within the medical device. More specifically, some medical devices may be adapted to use an internal or attachable power source instead of requiring the device to be plugged into an external source by a cable. Merely exemplary devices that may be adapted to include a portable power source are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,500,176 entitled “Electrosurgical Systems and Techniques for Sealing Tissue,” issued Dec. 31, 2002, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pat. No. 7,416,101 entitled “Motor-Driven Surgical Cutting and Fastening Instrument with Loading Force Feedback,” issued Aug. 26, 2008, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pat. No. 7,738,971 entitled “Post-Sterilization Programming of Surgical Instruments,” issued Jun. 15, 2010, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0079874 entitled “Tissue Pad for Use with an Ultrasonic Surgical Instrument,” published Apr. 13, 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pub. No. 2007/0191713 entitled “Ultrasonic Device for Cutting and Coagulating,” published Aug. 16, 2007, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pub. No. 2007/0282333 entitled “Ultrasonic Waveguide and Blade,” published Dec. 6, 2007, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0200940 entitled “Ultrasonic Device for Cutting and Coagulating,” published Aug. 21, 2008, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0209990 entitled “Motorized Surgical Cutting and Fastening Instrument Having Handle Based Power Source,” published Aug. 20, 2009, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,657,174 on Feb. 25, 2014, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein; and U.S. Pub. No. 2010/0069940 entitled “Ultrasonic Device for Fingertip Control,” published Mar. 18, 2010, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. Similarly, various ways in which medical devices may be adapted to include a portable power source are disclosed in U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/410,603, filed Nov. 5, 2010, entitled “Energy-Based Surgical Instruments,” the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Electrically powered medical devices such as those referred to herein may require the use of high value or environmentally restricted disposable components to operate. The ability to reuse or reprocess these components over multiple uses may increase the value of the initial purchase by possibly spreading the cost of those components over the multiple uses. It may also be desirable in some settings to allow portable electronic components such as batteries to be recharged and/or be otherwise reprocessed between uses in sterile medical devices, without such electronic components having to be resterilized between uses in sterile medical devices, and without such devices contaminating sterile medical devices during re-use of the non-sterile electronic components. In addition or in the alternative, reclamation and reuse of the components may avoid or mitigate any environmental issues that may otherwise be associated with the disposal of the components after a single use. One potential approach may include reusing clean electrical components within multiple medical devices.
While several systems and methods have been made and used for component acceptance and release features for medical devices, it is believed that no one prior to the inventors has made or used the invention described in the appended claims.
The drawings are not intended to be limiting in any way, and it is contemplated that various embodiments of the technology may be carried out in a variety of other ways, including those not necessarily depicted in the drawings. The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present technology, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the technology; it being understood, however, that this technology is not limited to the precise arrangements shown.