The IEEE EMBS Bangalore Chapter, IEEE EMBS MSRIT Student Chapter in association with the Department of Medical Electronics, MSRIT M.S.Ramaiah Medical College and hospital, , InnAccel and Stanford India Biodesign conducted a two day workshop at the MSRIT campus on medical device design which witnessed participants from Engineering, Medical and Business backgrounds come together to learn the basis of medical device design.
DAY 1
Dr. Jagdish Chaturvedi gave an overview on the biodesign process incorporated by the Stanford India Biodesign(SIB) and also introduced the participants to InnAccel. He stressed on the importance of human resource, perseverance and following basic design rules as the keys for converting ideas into effective products in the society. He also explained the process followed in making observations in clinical immersions. Concepts of Identification of the needs, Invention and Implementations were explained with examples.
The workshop’s strategic focus was in the areas of ENT, orthopedics, general medicine, chest medicine and ophthalmology. A total of 32 participants were divided into 6 teams(5-7 members each) with each team consisting of doctors, engineers and management skilled people. Each team was assigned a mentor from a group of facilitators which included Jagdish Chaturvedi(SIB 2012), Adithya Pasupuleti(SIB 2013), Nitesh Jangir(SIB 2013) and Ramakrishna Pappu(InnAccel). Each team was sent for a clinical immersion for a period of two hours at the M.S.Ramaiah Teaching Hospital in any one of the areas which included General Medicine, ENT OPD, Chest Medicine, Orthopedics and Ophthalmology. Each team at the hospital made extensive observations in the respective fields guided by the team doctors who explained the details of the doctor-patient interactions. The non-medical participants gained an insight into the doctor-patient interaction as many volunteered to play the role of a patient with the team doctors making their assessments about the tests and other details. This gave an opportunity for all to make demographic observations during such interactions and test procedures.
The teams then returned to MSRIT campus and had an exercise on identifying the problem statement from the observations made. Post lunch, the concepts of needs and scoping were discussed extensively by the facilitators. The teams were then made to work on the need statements, filtering the need statements and arrive at three need specifications which the end-product should be possessing.
DAY 2
The second day of the workshop began with a brainstorming session where each team was given two hours to extensively think and analyze the various possibilities of satisfying all the needs satisfactorily. This was followed by the concept selection session by Rahul Rubero(SIB 2009) where the teams were asked to choose the most compelling and effective concept that could be worked upon as the solution to the need statement. A brief talk on innovation opportunities in Healthcare was given by Dr. Jagdish Chaturvedi.
Once the solution concept was finalized, the teams were asked to come up with a prototype of the solution. The teams were given all basic materials required and an hour’s time to come up with the prototype. Post this session, the teams presented their prototypes and their ideas to the audiences which was followed by feedback session. The audience was also given the opportunity to ask questions and get a clear sense of what the other teams will be working on.
The event was a grand success and gave the participants from different backgrounds a platform to interact and share opinions, work together and come up with innovative solutions. Mr. A Vijayarajan, founder and CTO, InnAccel was present throughout the workshop guiding all the teams and giving invaluable advice on their ideas. The teams are currently given 10 days time to work on the prototypes and present them to a panel of experts. The teams will have to submit a presentation and some research which has gone into arriving at the prototype which will be followed by feedback sessions.
A collection of action packed snapshots of events during the workshop:
