Purdue University Design & Innovation Competition
Team members of first prize winning team Pillendar (left to right): Jenny Xiangwi Tang, Glonaz Safari, and Hugo Li with Arne R. Flaten, PhD, the head professor of art history at the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance at Purdue University. (Photo provided by: Purdue University)
Purdue University’s Design and Innovation Competition finale was held April 26, with three finalist teams being selected from a cohort of 11 to pitch and win a total of $4,000 in prize money sponsored by the Patient Safety technology Challenge with funding from the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI).
The three teams had 10 minutes to pitch their innovative tech-enabled patient safety solutions to a panel of diverse judges including nurses from the medtech industry, an anesthesiologist, and professors from Purdue representing technology leadership and innovation as well as industrial design.
Event organizer, Jung Joo Sohn, assistant professor of industrial design and interaction design at Purdue University said, “Partnering with the Patient Safety Technology Challenge was a truly meaningful experience for students and faculty members. Their passion for patient safety truly engaged our innovators and motivated them to participate wholeheartedly. The time spent with the topic greatly assisted our students in developing and advancing innovative ideas.”
Judges recruited by PRHI included Joseph Anderson, Pamela Parker, and Heather Ball.
The teams and their respective prizes were:
· Pillendar, a configurable pillbox that can provide cues to users based on their needs along with an accompanying app that acts as a mediator between patients and their healthcare team, winning $2,500;
· Scout, an innovative device to improve workflow efficiency during high-stress situations through the use of an intuitive hands-free vein visualizer, winning $1,000;
· Nebu, an innovative nebulizer for asthmatic patients that helps reduce the number of patients harmed from complications, winning $500.
Pillendar’s idea aimed to increase the number of patients taking their medicines as prescribed. Their idea addressed the main reasons of non-adherence through tech-enabled solutions. The Pillbox has a re-configurable design, portable connectivity, and weight sensors to track pills.
Scout team member Alan Yan describes the second-place winning idea as a portable venous access device utilizing near infra-red technology to streamline medical procedures.
“Its intuitive and convenient design is aimed to be an immense increase of quality of life, and a critical asset in intense situations,” said Yan, adding the team will be taking the insightful feedback from the medical professionals at Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, among other esteemed guests, and continually improve upon our current designs. Our hope and dream is to eventually design a product that can have meaningful impacts in real world applications.”
The Nebu team created their project to address major pain points when using nebulizers. Their solution aims to reduce the size and number of components on a device to streamline the process, creating peace of mind by reduced the chance of medical errors during the process.
Event organizer Purdue University Technology Leadership and Innovation Department Head Greg Strimel, PhD said, “Having the Patient Safety Tech context for our Design & Innovation Challenge and Courses really provided an opportunity for refining the learning experience for our students. Finding meaningful and relevant problems to solve through design can be a difficult task for students. This event gave them a great place to start for developing innovative solutions that have the potential to help people.”
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge is looking forward to seeing what these teams do next.