A recent 3-day design charette hosted by University of Michigan's Stamps School pitted students against one of the trickiest global issues in years: Ebola. The multi-disciplinary teams from design, engineering, medical and business programs addressed three topics based on needs established by NGOs, medical professionals and emergency responders with experience in the crisis. Aiming to keep the resulting projects as economical and pragmatic as possible, the categories were pointedly ground-level: design of personal protection equipment, health communication across cultural and linguistic barriers, and transportation of infected and diseased bodies.
The students’ work was informed by seasoned medical and design faculty from ideation through critique, and the simplicity and thoughtfulness of the projects shows it. And putting real walk to their talk, some of the resulting designs are in trials for further development both on campus and with partners on the ground in west Africa. Here are a few highlights.
On the ground, medical responders regularly need to wear two pairs of gloves at a time for safety, multiplying the already irritating process of removing sticky sweaty gloves and adding a deadly serious threat of self contamination during removal. And with high heat and humidity, dextrous de-gloving gets really difficult. To make non-messy glove removal a little quicker, one team developed an internally adhered sticker, which the user can bend and pinch from the outside for easier removal when the time comes.
Stringent isolation and quarantine are key elements in treating and reducing the spread of Ebola, which is especially hard on patients removed from their homes and families often without even being able to say goodbye. Because human touch is deeply connected to the act of comforting, physical separation of patients and caregivers and family can deepen the trauma of illness. The Embrace was conceived as a safe method for comforting intimacy, and a humanizing tool against fear and alienation. The design is based on existing methods for doctors and patient interaction, and the methods for parents to interact with neonatal babies.
Protective suits can be unwieldy and difficult to get out of safely which can put them at risk of ripping or worse. As a valuable and often scarce resource it’s important to make sanitary disrobing easier. These simple disposable straps are designed to make peeling a suit off easier without a lot of contamination or struggle. Just stick them on the inside of the lapels while suiting up, and remove safely later. Neatly done.
Similarly simple, the Transformative Tyvek project proposes distributing pre-printed but uncut Tyvek with suggestions for multiple hygienic uses in a response environment. Options include use as a bed sheet, vomit container, apron, mask, and body bag. Tyvek is an easily produced material and by producing and shipping flat distribution would be relatively painless.
For more on this charette check out the project page and keep an eye out for more of the school’s work on social design in the future.
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