EXTON, Pa., Nov. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh USA, Inc. today announced at the RSNA Assembly and Annual Meeting, a partnership with Materialise that will provide software solutions to support RICOH 3D for Healthcare (Booth #8300) – a HIPAA-compliant, ISO 13485 certified 3D medical manufacturing center for the development, design and production of 3D-printed anatomic models – in both their centralized medical device manufacturing facility, as well as in Ricoh's Point of Care facilities. Through the partnership, Ricoh will now be able to drive more personalized healthcare solutions and make it simple to create or expand on-site Point of Care centers.

With an uptick in 3D printing, hospitals are either now seeking to enter the market by establishing Point of Care centers onsite or scaling existing offerings. A main driver of either option is co-located management of facilities and production through partners such as Ricoh with technologies like those from Materialise. However, it is important for care providers to recognize that when these 3D-printed models and other instruments are used for patient care, they may be considered medical devices, subject to FDA regulation. With RICOH 3D for Healthcare, hospitals can adopt or advance Point of Care manufacturing quickly and affordably without the need to become an FDA registered medical device manufacturer, implement a complex and costly quality management system, navigate regulatory requirements, or tackle the administrative aspects to support it all with a multidisciplinary team. The partnership reimagines Point of Care 3D printing to democratize enterprise-wide, patient-specific surgical innovation to the rest of the population.

Ricoh is partnering with Materialise to leverage their leading software solutions to bring affordable Point of Care 3D printing services to hospitals across the country. The partnership will allow both parties to expand the use of Materialise software within Ricoh's workflows and continually improve the available toolset to better serve patient care.

"Materialise's software tools will not only help Ricoh provide a better experience for its customers, but also support Ricoh in its goal democratizing equitable access to impactful tools such as patient-specific anatomic models," said Gary Turner, Managing Director, Additive Manufacturing, North America, Ricoh USA, Inc. "The ecosystem of Ricoh partners, inclusive of Materialise, Merative and Stratasys, has enabled Ricoh to bring world-class software in a first-of-its-kind, end-to-end solution to different healthcare institutions around country to drive more Point of Care locations and capabilities nationally."

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