DtM Research Presentation at CIMIT Forum

On Tuesday May 05 from 4-6PM, Design that Matters and the CIMIT Global Health Initiative will present "Medical Devices in Global Health: Idea to Implementation, Successes and Challenges" at the CIMIT Forum.

AGENDA: The implementation of appropriate medical devices in poor countries has the potential to alter the health care system and reach those who are most in need. With the regulatory institutions in these countries often non-existent or immature, implementation of these devices pose a myriad of challenges and obstacles. An exploration of these road blocks is needed to ensure that once these medical devices are developed, they can be successfully deployed.

Dr. Steve Ringer from Brigham and Women's Hospital, who has extensive experience in health care delivery and medical devices in Vietnam, will moderate the forum. Dr. Kris Olson and Aya Caldwell from the CIMIT Global Health Initiative will discuss their findings with a tube and mask device in Indonesia. Timothy Prestero, CEO of Design that Matters, will present findings from market research in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh and India. Students from MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing program and from the Harvard School of Public Health will present the results of their research into regulatory processes and distribution channels for medical devices in emerging markets.

The presentations will be followed by audience Q&A and networking.

EVENT DATE: Tuesday May 05, 4-6PM
LOCATION: CIMIT Forum, Richard B. Simches Research Center, Room 3110
185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA
PDF map of the MGH Campus | Google Map

Incubator Poster at World Health Care Congress

CIMIT GHI representative Aya Caldwell presented our poster, "Car Part Incubator," at the World Health Care Conference in Washington DC. Our poster will be part of the "Extremely Affordable Health Innovations" Poster Session, sponsored by the Grameen Health initiative. This was an excellent opportunity to share our work with a diverse group of medical device designers and global health experts. Aya presented another CIMIT GHI project with the poster "Cost Affective Asphyxia Intervention in Aceh," which won the poster section for Maternal-Child Health.

Also presenting at the poster session was the Embrace Global team, alumni of the 2007 DtM incubator project at Stanford University.

You can see a PDF of the incubator poster here, or you can follow it to Europe and the World Health Care Congress Europe 2009 on May 13-14 in Brussels, Belgium.

DtM Incubator in ASEE Prism Magazine

"Each year, 4 million newborns die worldwide, 98 percent of them in developing countries. Many could be saved if they were placed in incubators to keep them warm and monitored.Thousands of incubators have been donated to these regions from richer nations, but a 2007 Duke University study found that 96 percent of them break down within five years and are too costly and complex to repair. So a Boston group has devised an ingenious fix: an incubator made from old car parts." -- Thomas K. Grose, "Junk for Joy", ASEE Prism Briefinds, Mar 2009

Note that the incubator project isn't about building medical devices out of "junk." DtM and CIMIT GHI have used field research, clinical feedback and maintenance considerations to build early “works-like” and “looks-like” prototypes for a low-cost incubator using locally available materials—-specifically parts from a four-wheel drive SUV. With respect to car parts, our goal in the project has been to explore three specific opportunities:

1. Automobiles are one of the few technologies that are reliably repaired in rural communities. Is it possible to design an incubator such that, if you know how to fix a car, you can figure out how to fix this incubator?

2. There are over 40,000 parts in a standard SUV, and the auto industry has the distribution channels necessary to deliver those parts to the most remote communities. Is it possible to make use of some of those auto parts in the incubator design, in order to take advantage of economies of scale and access to spares?

3. To paraphrase Paul Hudnut at Colorado State University, Coke, cigarettes and car parts are three products you can find pretty much anywhere in the world. Given that the auto industry can deliver parts to the most remote communities, is it possible for the incubator to take advantage of their supply chain to deliver incubator parts?

Stay tuned for details from our on-going research into medical device distribution channels in emerging markets.

DtM Incubator Featured at SolidWorks World 2009

At the SolidWorks World 2009 Convention company CEO and keynote speaker Jeff Ray used the Low-Cost Infant Incubator development by Design that Matters and CIMIT as an example of innovation and great designs during hard times. Later in the discussion, Virgin CEO Richard Branson said: "Working on a new kind of [baby] incubator is more important than getting drunk every night." Amen!

See Jeff's Keynote and the Incubator video here (innovation in hard times starts at 16 minutes):

MIT and Harvard Teams Launch Incubator Research Projects

With help from students in the MIT Leaders for Manufacturing Program and the Harvard School of Public Health, DtM and partner CIMIT Global Health Initiative have launched a new research effort around distribution channels for medical devices in developing countries--with a particular focus on opportunities for our infant incubator. Our questions relate to product manufacturing, financing and distribution. There are at least two channels through which incubators and other pieces of medical equipment arrive in clinics in poor countries: through donations, and through commercial purchase. Our goal is to develop a picture of the decision-makers and stakeholders along each channel, building a better picture of those involved in medical device production for emerging markets.

The project will involve research and interviews with key stakeholders, as well as a literature survey and product benchmarking. The end reports will significantly advance our understanding of the nature of the medical device market in poor countries, and opportunities that exist for our product design service.

For the first team, we recruited students from MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing program, specifically Prof. Jan Klein's "Tiger Team" semester project program. This program, launched in 2001, was initially conceived as a way to assist small- to medium-sized manufacturers within the Greater Boston area to quickly "fix" an ongoing problem that occurred in the factory. It has since expanded to tackle a range of manufacturing issues. LfM students have made significant contributions to DtM projects in 2004, 2005 and 2007. This year's team, Oladapo "Dapo" Bakare, Kacy Gerst and Tatiana Yglesias are LfM Masters degree candidates, and all have significant industry experience to apply to the project.

For the second team, we recruited students from Harvard School of Public Health "Blueprint for Health" program, run by students in the, Harvard Social Entrepreneurs in Health (SEIH) Student Organization. "Blueprint for Health" aims to empower students to develop their social entrepreneurial skills by providing opportunities for them to join a team of students to get involved in one of many projects that we have already secured with existing public health enterprises. This is DtM's first year working with the student group. We're looking forward to their results!

Governor Deval Patrick gets an incubator demo

"Companies headquartered at the Cambridge Innovation Center, a rental office facility where scores of Boston-area entrepreneurs have gotten their ideas off the ground, played host to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick this afternoon. Patrick and other officials—including Massachusetts Life Sciences Center president Susan Windham-Bannister and Greg Bialicki, Patrick’s choice to replace outgoing Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Daniel O’Connell—spent about 20 minutes in a closed roundtable discussion with company leaders at 1:00 p.m., then circulated among the small (some of them really small) companies contributing to the startup brew at the CIC building, a Kendall Square landmark at One Broadway." -- Wade Roush, "Governor Patrick Tours Cambridge Innovation Center," Xconomy Boston, 30Jan09.

Thanks to Cambridge Innovation Center CEO Tim Rowe for inviting us to the demo--an for insisting that the Governor try lifting the bassinet. Never miss an opportunity for design feedback! It was a pleasure to meet the Governor and discuss international development. After graduating Harvard in 1978, Governor Patrick lived and worked in Africa for a year, most of that time on a United Nations youth training project in the Darfur region of Sudan. As a result, he's already familiar with the challenge of providing poor communities with products and services designed to meet their needs. The demo was also an opportunity to meet Massachusetts Life Sciences Center president Susan Windham-Bannister.

Two DtM Student Teams Launch Spin-Off Initiatives

We are happy to report that DtM has helped to launch two groups of students, one at MIT and one at Stanford University, as spin-off initiatives to continue the development of their infant incubator prototypes. The students are building on the work they completed for their 2007 DtM design projects. Both designs are inspired by the pioneering work of both MIT's Amy Smith who developed the phase-change vaccine incubator (scroll down for a description in the GOOD magazine article), and the first phase-change infant incubator (PDF link) design by DtM seminar students Prasanga Lokuge and Aileen Wu in the 2002 Design that Matters seminar at the MIT Media Lab.

The talented members of this year's teams could have easily found high-paying jobs in the private sector. We are very happy to see them making a career commitment to improving lives in poor communities. The student efforts will complement DtM's continuing collaboration with the CIMIT Global Health Initiative.

Embrace Global

The Embrace Global team is creating a $25 incubator designed to work in primary healthcare centers or in homes. It uses an innovative phase-change material in a sleeping bag design to regulate a baby's temperature. They aim to save 135,000 babies in India after five years, and reduce the health problems of another 3.8 million. DtM recruited this team through Prof. Jim Patell's "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability" course at the Stanford University d-school.

The Embrace team awards to date include an Echoing Green Fellowship, 1st place in the Stanford Social E-Challenge competition, 3rd place in the 2008 Primal Prize competition and a "featured entry" in the 2008 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

The team is lead by Jane Chen and Rahul Panicker. Jane recently graduated from a joint MBA/MPP program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She formerly worked for the Chi Heng Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa. Rahul Panicker recently completed a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford. He is also an alumnus of Stanford's Institute of Design, and received his B.Tech from IIT Madras, India. Prior to his PhD, he worked at the particle accelerator at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Appropria Medical Solutions

The Appropria Medical Solutions team, from MIT, is developing Anya, a portable infant incubator. Anya increases the reach of neonatal care for premature babies older than 25 weeks of gestation. The team is focusing on the problem of infant transportation, providing temperature regulation and adequate support for a range of infant sizes. DtM recruited members of this team from MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing program, specifically Prof. Jan Klein's "Tiger Team" semester project program.

The Appropria team awards to date include Regional Finalist, Global Social Venture Competition and Winner, Legatum Grant, MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

The team is lead by Dr. Basmaa Ali and Subrangshu Datta. Basmaa completed her MD in internal medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently pursuing her MBA at MIT Sloan. Subrangshu was a 2007 MIT Leaders for Manufacturing Fellow, and has six years of experience in engineering and supply chain management at Cessna Aircraft Company. Their advisors include Dr. Vinod Paul, head of pediatrics at the All India Institute of Medical Science in Delhi, and MacArthur Award recipient Dr. Abhay Bang.

DtM Debuts its Latest Incubator Model

Last summer, DtM partnered with the CIMIT Global Health Initiative, and recruited three Industrial Design students from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to develop the Neonatal Incubator's second phase prototype. Building off of the insights from Spring semester's project and field-studies, Mike Hahn, Tom Weis, and Adam Geremia, along with numerous volunteers, collaborated to create a looks-like and works-like model with the aims for it to be:

-Sold for roughly US$1000, or 3% of the cost of the current top-of-the-line domestic incubators;
-Manufactured from locally available parts, and repaired by local workers and laborers;
-Design for the local conditions, such as temperature extremes and power supply fluctuations.

Click to read more...

Spring 2007 Incubator Project Summaries

DtM recruited seven student teams from MIT, RISD, Stanford University and Arizona State University to develop specific prototypes and to conduct market research for the Infant Incubator project. DtM’s design teams included: seven students and professors Sebastian Fixson and Matthew Kressy from MIT/RISD course 15.783j “Product Design and Development,” who developed a “works-like” prototype; four students and Professor Jan Klein from MIT Leaders for Manufacturing (LfM) “Tiger Team,” who researched market segmentation and product feature sets; thirteen students with professors James Patell, David Beach, and T.A. Sarah Stein Greenberg, from Stanford’s d.school course “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability,” who also worked on a number of “works-like” prototypes; and two mechanical engineering students with Professor Winslow Burleson, from Arizona State University, who worked on a temperature control system for the incubator.

Student teams were mentored by volunteers from IDEO members: Colleen Cotter, Mekayla Beaver, Kate Schreiber, Elizabeth Johansen, Yona Belfort, and Jeff Chapin. In addition to mentoring students, these volunteers helped synthesize field data, conducted U.S. based user research at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, and participated in the evaluation of student design concepts. DtM is very grateful for their services. Final prototypes were reviewed by domain experts from Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University Hospital, and experts in engineering, design and manufacturing.

MIT Leaders for Manufacturing “Tiger Team” – Market Research

The LfM team consisted of mid-career students with manufacturing and business backgrounds. The team included a pediatrician from Pakistan, a manufacturing engineer from India and two Sloan MBA students. Their market research suggested two key segments for incubator implementation: infant transport following at-home birth and infant care in a sub-district hospital. Specifically, they found that reliable incubators could save 670,000 lives in hospitals in India and, with a portable model, up to 1.06 million lives of those born at home.

MIT-RISD “Product Design and Development” course – “Neo.nurture”

This model was built to address “access” issues for doctors and caretakers who perform emergency and routine clinical care on at-risk newborns. The prototype includes a detachable bassinette, which can be held in a parent’s lap for direct interaction. Removed from the base, the bassinette can serve as a rocker on any flat surface. The top incorporates button closures, and a bacteria-resistant Tyvek® fabric that simulates a blanket covering for the infant and could reduce instances of over-bundling, which is a common problem in Nepal. The bassinette features a clever arrangement of ports and doors, providing doctors, nurses and parents with several access options while minimizing the exposure of the infant to the outside environment. An interior baffle system maintains isolation of the infant’s head in all but the most open configuration. Mattress tilt (necessary for relieving acid reflux in newborns) is achieved by shifting the bassinette between carved notches on the curved base. The interface and computer are a modular unit, and internal parts, such as heaters and fans, are off-the-shelf components to simplify maintenance. Since power outages are a common occurrence, a backup battery maintains power for the unit until hospital generators turn on.

In addition to the IDEO volunteers, Christian Diefenbach, Wade Brainerd contributed their professional expertise to assist with the circuit design of this project.

Stanford “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” course – “Embrace”

The “Embrace” concept specifically targets midwives as users and addresses the problem of infant transportation. The basic design resembles a sleeping bag. Temperature is maintained by a pouch containing phase change material (PCM), placed in a compartment below the baby. It is embedded with a thermochromatic ink which changes color to indicate when the PCM is too cold or too warm. This device uses no electricity and has no moving parts.

Stanford “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” course – “The Guts”

This is a simple $10 replacement for the most vital parts of an infant incubator: a heating element and temperature sensors for the temperature control system, and a fan and air filter for air quality and infection control. The device consists of a hairdryer heating coil and fan, which is inserted into a rugged Nalgene water bottle, along with an array of thermocouples connected to a controller circuit. The air inlet filter is cut from a standard, disposable, silver-impregnated surgical mask. The system can be used as a substitute for broken heating and filtration elements in existing incubators, which are often donated to hospitals in developing countries without spare parts. The low-cost design would also allow local craftspeople to build their own incubator boxes from locally available materials. This team consisted of: Alexander Butterwick, Nicholas Webb, Peter Rubin, and Lia Ramirez.

Stanford “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” course – “mkat”

This portable incubator has a target price of $200. The design is intended to be mounted on a table, saving the materials cost of a base. The hand-access portals feature overlapping neoprene membranes which provide easy access to the child without exposing it to outside elements. The design also features wall panels of translucent plastic that can easily be removed for whole-body access to the child while providing excellent visibility when closed. The entire incubator lid is shaped like a cake box and is easily detachable from the base for emergency access. The housing is designed to be assembled from laser-cut flat stock, meaning that the incubator can be packaged flat for shipping.

Stanford “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” course – “The Life Raft Incubator”

This device is a fully functioning incubator prototype that assists in thermo-regulation for a newborn child and is priced at $625. The “Life Raft” incubator is optimized for accessibility and ease of use. For example, the portals are sealed by a latch that can be opened by elbows, and the split canopy is designed to allow medics to access the upper or lower half of the baby, without exposing the whole baby to the open air. The bunting heating trap keeps the baby warm, while a safety strap secures him/her in place. On its base, the incubator has handles for easy transportability and an unambiguous digital display showing vital statistics such as temperature and humidity. This model is designed for easy assembly and repair as it has a detachable heated water bed, modular electronics (including the alarm signal) which can be swapped out if they break, and a cylindrical canopy that can be formed from a single sheet of plastic. To assist with thermo-regulation of the infant, the canopy consists of a double wall of plastic and there is a heated water bed that acts as thermal mass and provides heat backup in case of a power outage.

Arizona State University thesis project – “Temperature Control System”

The system consists of stationary thermistors, which are mounted to the exterior and interior of the incubator with a third mounted on a probe that is taped to the infant’s abdomen. These sensors are interpreted using an Arduino board, which serves as the platform for all of the sensors and controls that make up the basic operation of the incubator. The Arduino board is an inexpensive physical computing platform with its own programming environment. The existing system prototype is able to measure the resistance of one thermistor and convert this value to degrees Celsius. If this value is too low, an LED representing the heater is lit. If the value lies out of a safe range, either too high or too low, an alarm sounds. The existing system will easily incorporate two more thermistors, and heat transfer models and experimental results will be used to create a heating algorithm that takes into account all three measured temperatures.

DtM CEO Panel Speaker at CIMIT Innovation Congress

The CIMIT Innovation Congress in November brought together leaders from industry, academia and government to collaborate and explore ways in which technology innovations are catalyzing change in healthcare. This year’s event highlighted innovative devices and procedures being developed in the research laboratories of Boston’s teaching hospitals in collaboration with local engineers and scientists.

DtM’s CEO, Timothy Prestero, was a panel speaker for the conversation, “Innovative Technology and Global Health: Barriers and Opportunities,” which discussed healthcare solutions in environments needing cost-effective, locally relevant responses. This panel also highlighted the development of technologies designed to protect mothers and infants both in the United States and internationally.

Moderator:
Kristian R. Olson, MD, MPH, DTM & H (Lond.), Clinical Educator Svc, Department of Medicine, MGH; CIMIT Global Health Initiative Leader; MGH Center for Global Health
Senior Advisor; Instructor, HMS

Panel:
Timothy Prestero, SM Mechanical Engineering & SM Oceanographic Engineering; CEO & Co-Founder, Design that Matters
Thomas Burke, MD, Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health
Jonathan Rosen, PhD, Executive Director, Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization, Boston University

Stanford Incubator Team Elected 'Entrepreneur Idol'

"The budding capitalists at Stanford University on Friday held "Entrepreneur Idol," a takeoff on the Fox Broadcasting talent show. Instead of singing tunes by Bon Jovi or Burt Bacharach, 48 students each had one minute to pitch their best business ideas. The winner would land $2,000 in seed money and connections to a top-level venture firm — but first had to win over a panel of four venture capitalists and one technology blogger.

Linus Liang, 25, a first-year graduate student in computer science, held up a diapered baby doll.

"What if I could tell you how you can save 4 million babies a year?" he asked. His idea: create a low-cost incubator that could help infants in developing countries. [...]

The five finalists pitched again. Liang brought out the doll again for his pitch. Charles River partner Saar Gur called the prop "questionable."

But as with "American Idol," the viewers decided. The crowd of rejected contestants and student spectators clapped and cheered the loudest for Liang, who took home the $2,000 grand prize.

He just smiled to the audience, then scurried to the judges for more advice." -- from the LA Times article "Stanford students vie to be 'Entrepreneur Idol'", by Michelle Quinn, 14 Mar 2007.

Linus and his teammates have taken on DtM's low cost infant incubator project as part of "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability", a d.school course taught by Profs. Jim Patell and David Beach through the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Engineering school, and the Institute of Design.

DtM Fellow Matt Eckelman on the Nepal Field Study

Matt Eckelman is a graduate student in environmental engineering at Yale, working on energy modeling and green industrial design. After returning from the Peace Corps in Nepal, he worked with Design that Matters as Fellow for the spring and summer before returning to school. Matt is a great resource to DtM as he is always willing to be shipped off to a foreign country for a great cause.

In 2005, I was freshly back from the Peace Corps in Nepal and working with Design that Matters at their home base in Cambridge. When Tim called me earlier this year to ask if I wanted to help out on an incubator project in Kathmandu, of course it was easy to say yes...

I had the great fortune to be able to return to Nepal twice: once with Tim in January for an initial assessment, and once in March with the Stanford/IDEO team. For both trips, I was in the multi-task position of acting as designer, guide, and translator. As such, I was somewhat apprehensive when, on our second full day in Nepal, we split up the team and sent Alex and Colleen with a guide to Chautara, very close to Tibet, while Leslie, Linus, Nick, and I conducted interviews at a couple of hospitals east of Kathmandu. For the entire trip I had been impressed with the Stanford students--how thorough they were in their questioning, how excited they were about the project, how well they seemed to adapt to the often chaotic streets of Kathmandu. I was even more impressed when, after a long bus trip back to the capital, the teams came together with stories and insights from both trips.

Alex and Colleen related the inspiring work of the one doctor who was running an entire district hospital; he minced no words in his desire for a cheap, functional incubator. Our team talked about the young nurses we had met who had been trained at the Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu, who so clearly wanted to do the best they could with the pair of available incubators in their neonatal wards. It was inspiring to watch the team synthesize all of the different information from our daily observations--I had never seen so many post-it notes on a wall before--with Colleen bringing many of the techniques from her work at IDEO to bear on this new project.

I think it was sometime in the middle of watching the Stanford students create a mine map of local incubator functions that I realized I wasn’t really guiding the team at all on the actual project. They had succeeded on their own in taking in the findings from our trip in January, generating new design ideas, and even presenting them to Ray Avery, the founder of Medicine Mondiale, DtM's client.

IDEO Volunteer Colleen Cotter on the Nepal Field Study

Colleen Cotter is a human centered designer at IDEO, focused on designing products and experiences for children and families. Her product design footprint spans an array of industries: educational, medical, consumer products, food and beverages, and toys. Colleen volunteered her vacation time to mentor the Stanford students during their research trip to Nepal.

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind immersion into Nepali neonatal care.

The overall goal of our project is to develop a low-cost incubator and isolation unit for infant care in developing countries. We began by focusing this exploration on the needs and constraints of Nepal, with the intention of later broadening our reach to neonatal care units all over the world.

In order to truly understand the extraordinary needs of Nepal, it was critical for us to perform our research in context. By visiting Nepal, we quickly gained direct exposure to many factors that will influence the look, feel, and function of our prototype.

In three days, we visited six hospitals (both urban and rural), meeting with dozens of inspirational stakeholders including directors, doctors, nurses, parents, and technicians. We experienced first hand the incredible barriers neonatal units face, ranging from the varied standards of cleanliness to the struggling Nepali infrastructure for health care. We met with one doctor who serves as the sole physician for an entire region of Nepal, the director of the hospital, as well as the maintenance man for all hospital equipment.

In physically transporting ourselves around Nepal, we came to understand how challenging it is for patients to access health care, and for health care workers to access needed resources. The rural communities are at an especially high risk and pose unique challenges that affect the design of the prototype.

Our experiences highlighted both constraints and opportunities for our project. While in Nepal, the team applied a design filter, translating most observed struggles into design challenges. With each struggle, the team members asked themselves, how might we make this experience better?

By taking the time to observe in a NICU for several hours the team gained insights into how nurses interact with their patients, equipment, and space. Over time, many opportunities for improvement became obvious and the team was naturally brainstorming solutions. Easier access to the infant and clearer communication between alarms and nursing staff surfaced as critical issues to explore.

I’m enormously proud of the efforts put forth by this talented team. The team is currently working to translate our insights into innovative incubator prototypes. Stay tuned!

Incuabtor Field Team Leaves for Nepal

This Sunday, IDEO volunteer Colleen Cotter and DtM Fellow Matt Eckelman will lead a group of Stanford University graduate students to Nepal for week of in-depth user interviews and observations at maternity wards and infant care facilities in and around Kathmandu.

The students have taken on DtM's low cost infant incubator project as part of "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability", a d.school course taught by Profs. Jim Patell and David Beach through the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Engineering school, and the Institute of Design.

The goal of the field study is to develop a deeper understanding of both the product context and user perspectives. The resulting insights will drive the development of the student incubator prototypes during the Spring quarter course. We expect great things from the field team, and we hope they enjoy the buff momos!

DtM Field Study in Kathmandu, Nepal

DtM's Timothy Prestero and Matt Eckelman just returned from a one-week field study in Kathmandu, Nepal for our new Low-Cost Infant Incubator project. The field study was a great success. We visited infant intensive care units at five different hospitals in Kathamandu, and interviewed everyone from doctors to nurses to parents to maintenance staff and the cleaning lady. We've learned an enormous amount about the needs for neonatal care, and it's clear that we have the opportunity to make a huge difference in the health care for newborns in developing countries.

Student project teams are now getting underway at MIT, Stanford, the Rhode Island School of Design and Arizona State University. We have a follow-up trip to Nepal coming up on March 19th, which will provide the student teams an opportunity to conduct their own field research.

Incubator Research Begins in Boston

DtM has started initial product research on our low-cost infant incubator project. Working with a volunteer team from IDEO, we are conducting interviews and observations at local neonatal intensive care units to develop a basic understanding of infant care--in terms of both medical technologies and practices. We are also looking to collect insights from practioners as to what the aspirations are for infant care in the NICU, how existing incubators help and where they see opportunities for improvement. The US-based research is an important step in preparing for similar interviews and observations in Nepal.

We are grateful for the support of Dr. Mandy Belfort and Dr. Terri Gorman at the St. Elizabeth's Medical Center NICU who invited us to visit their facility. We would also like to thank hospital staff members Charlene Bent-Mack and Gina McKinnon, who patiently answered about one million "What's that?" and "How does that work?" questions. Thank you to IDEO's Elizabeth Johanson and Yona Belfort for helping to set up the interviews, and to IDEO volunteers Jeff Chapin, Mekayla Beaver and Kate Schreiber for donating their time and talents during the interviews.

DtM launches Low-Cost Infant Incubator Project

Design that Matters has partnered with Medicine Mondiale on a new project with the goal of transforming newborn care in developing countries. Worldwide, every year, over four million infants die within a month of birth, as a result of prematurity, low birthweight and infection. At least one million of these deaths could be prevented by providing these infants with an incubator--a clean, warm environment in which to grow stronger. Millions more infants would benefit from incubators in terms of shorter hospital stays and better long-term health outcomes.

Our client, Medicine Mondiale, has challenged DtM to design a prototype incubator that provide the basic functions of temperature control, air filtration and oxygen regulation. Conventional infant incubators developed for western markets can cost over US$20,000; our target cost is roughly US$200.

Since project launch, we have recruited five student teams at MIT, Stanford, the Rhode Island School of Design and Arizona State University. Each team is concentrating on different aspects of the design concept development and market research. In addition, IDEO has committed staff time and resources to product research and mentoring student teams. The initial user research and product testing will take place in Nepal, where Medicine Mondiale has an extensive network of contacts among health care providers and local manufacturers. You can follow the action on this project through the incubator pages on the DtM news blog.

Medicine Mondiale is a New Zealand-based NGO dedicated to making quality medicines and medical technologies available to the poorest of the poor in developing countries.