Skip to main content

Clinician involvement

Engineering Innovation in Health (EIH) promotes interdisciplinary collaborations between engineers and a wide range of clinicians with the goal of developing technical solutions to pressing challenges in health care.

We invite any health care professional to submit an unmet health challenge. Previous EIH projects have involved more than 100 clinicians, with diverse training and specialties, including medical doctors, surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, dentists, pharmacists, and pathologists.

Involvement

Submitting your unmet need

The EIH process starts with submitting an unmet health challenge and ultimately ends with a working prototype solution, which can take the form of a device, process, or application.

It takes only a few minutes to submit your initial unmet challenge via the Clinical Project Application. The applications asks you to describe the unmet health challenge, how the challenge is currently addressed, and your vision for how the project might move forward.

Selection process

In late summer (August/September), EIH invites a select group of submissions to give a reverse pitch, describing their unmet needs to our selection committee. The projects that the committee selects move forward in the first phase (October-December) that focuses on deep and holistic understanding of the unmet health challenge.

We often receive more than 50 submissions each year. Typically 10 to 15 projects are invited to participate in the autumn quarter class, and 6 to 8 projects move forward during winter and spring quarters for full development.

Time commitment

The submitting clinician (or team of clinicians) will form a team with engineering students and faculty. Autumn quarter requires roughly 1 to 3 hours per week of clinician time plus attendance at the Fall Showcase in December. If your project is selected for full development during winter and spring quarters (January–June) the time commitment will increase marginally.

There are no direct costs to the participating clinicians; however, we always welcome direct support to the program from individuals, departments, and industry.

 

Submit a health challenge

 

Benefits

Prototype solution and intellectual property

If your project is selected for full development, you will receive the solution to your health challenge in the form of a working prototype (device, process, app) in June. You and your team will submit the invention to CoMotion for further consideration for a U.S. patent application. A large percentage of EIH projects have pursued patent applications.

Preliminary data and comprehensive report

You will receive a comprehensive report that covers the background of the unmet need, the existing approaches and technologies that address the challenge, the regulatory pathway, preliminary market opportunity, and background intellectual property, as well as several solution designs and their preliminary data.

Future opportunities

The solution and report provides an abundance of opportunities to move the project forward:

  • Submit a patent for the innovation.
  • Use the report information and preliminary data gathered for subsequent publications and grant applications.
  • Evaluate the innovative solution in the clinic (with appropriate IRB and FDA considerations).
  • Begin the process of spinning out a start-up company.

Sample projects

For a full list of previous projects, visit the Projects section.

Intravenous Arm Trainer »

Over 200,000 IV catheters are placed daily in the United States; however, there is a 50% fail rate for correctly placing the catheter on the first needlestick. Healthcare students need to be able to train to place IVs, but existing arm trainers lack anatomical and physiological accuracy. As a consequence, students resort to practicing on other students or on patients, which poses an infection risk. This new arm trainer has a unique four-layer tissue and rolling vein behavior that provide the most realistic training experience possible for students.

IV arm trainer device

MindMend »

Chronic headache and migraine are frequent, severe neurological conditions that reduce quality of life. There are no highly effective pharmacologic interventions and those that are used have a substantial side effect profile. Headache focused biofeedback may be an effective intervention, but treatment is expensive and is currently only available at specialized facilities such as Seattle Children’s. Creating headache-focused biofeedback that is more accessible would allow patients to manage their headaches more effectively and reduce the cost and time associated with treatment at a center.

Under Pressure »

There are over 31,000 anesthesiologists currently in the United States facing the mental burden of administering medication, monitoring patient vitals, and making sure surgeries are performed safely and comfortably. In 2018, about 12% of the total surgeries completed at UW Medical Center used an arterial line, which is a highly invasive device can result in complications ranging from arterial occlusion, arterial thrombosis, compartment syndrome, infection, nerve injury and even skin necrosis if not recognized and treated early. Other less invasive devices exist, including the automatic pressure cuff which is an inflatable device normally applied on the brachial artery, but its inaccurate measurement, limited placement options (generally only arm), and non-continuous monitoring are significant disadvantages. Our group, Under Pressure, proposes using an adhesive device placed on the carotid artery that incorporates a photoplethysmography (PPG) light absorption sensor, an electrocardiography (ECG) electrical signal sensor, and a conformational ultrasound (US) patch to generate a measurement of blood pressure. The blood pressure cuff method is too archaic and the arterial line can lead to patient injury – the continuous and noninvasive nature of the Under Pressure patch has the potential to revolutionize blood pressure monitoring in the operating room.