On March 28, 2024, the 1^st Medical Equipment Innovation Competition hosted by China Association of Medical Equipment and Medical Equipment Intellectual Property Alliance was held in Chongqing. On behalf of the team, Physician He Xin from Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital (FAH) of Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) participated in the competition. The project entitled "Intra-aortic balloon pump Equipment and Consumables" stood out from nearly 500 projects, entered the top 15 finals, and finally received the national third prize.

Intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) is one of the most widely used auxiliary devices for mechanical circulation. IABP possesses multiple advantages including convenient use, simple implantation and low incidence of complications. Due to the lack of relevant technical reserves during the early stage, no domestic IABP equipment has been available. To break the technical monopoly of foreign products, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of FAH started to develop domestic IABP equipment and a full range of consumables, aiming to reduce clinical cost of IABP, promote the popularization of IABP technology to grassroots hospitals and provide safer and more feasible in vitro life support for critically ill patients. Both market application and technical barriers will bring broad application prospects for domestic IABP. Chief Technician Wang Jingyu and Chief Physician Yan Yang served as the team leaders. Relying on the research platforms of Xi'an Jinggong Medical Technology Co., Ltd. and Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, the team has cooperated with many key scientific research institutions in China to complete the research and development, quality inspection and clinical application of domestic ECMO equipment.

To further encourage medical and health institutions, medical equipment enterprises, colleges and universities, scientific research institutes to accelerate innovative development of original and leading novel technologies, China Association of Medical Equipment holds the 1^st Medical Equipment Innovation Competition with the theme of "Focusing on cutting-edge technology, Leading innovative development". Medical experts, leading entrepreneurs, colleges and universities, research institutes, investment and financing institutions were invited to attend the meeting, aiming to encourage relevant institutions to accelerate innovation and development of original leading novel technologies and help resolve key core technologies in the field of medical equipment. It is believed that in the future, FAH will continually join the trend of medical equipment innovation in China with cutting-edge technologies and high standards, and contribute potent technical and equipment support to regional medical construction.