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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.

Safe&Sound »

Occupational hearing damages across the United States is still one of the largest occupational illnesses. Despite the advancements in hearing protection technologies such as materials and designs, the rate of people who suffer hearing losses has not decreased over the years. This is partially due to a lack of the awareness of hazardous noise exposure. Thus a solution that provides noise level awareness would help those at risk of hearing damage properly protect themselves. For example, people who work at nuclear power plants carry radiation meter to warn of the dangerous radiation exposure or houses are required to have carbon monoxide detectors to inform people of the danger of intoxication. These harmful elements are difficult to see, thus, difficult for people to protect themselves. Safe&Sound's solution is to reduce occupational hearing loss by making the invisible noise visible like radiation meter and carbon monoxide detector. Their solution consists of an integrated microphone design with the capability to detect various hazards.

Aeroception »

With the COVID-19 pandemic, new challenges in dealing with airborne pathogens have been brought to light across many fields, most notably in dentistry. During dental procedures, the use of the necessary surgical instruments contributes to the production of bioaerosols putting medical staff and other patients at risk of infection. It is important to point out that many opportunistic respiratory infections are traced back to oral microbiota, further highlighting the importance of prevention. While current transmission-based precautions may help limit the spread, they do not prevent the spread altogether. Aeroception is working on a device to improve air quality around the patient’s oral cavity and the dental practitioners by reducing the number of contaminated aerosols and removing it out of clinical space, to better protect dental staff and patients in dental offices.  Their solution is a suction device that directs 99% of aerosols produced during dental visits away from the practitioners and removes it from the clinical space completely.

 

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.