Industry involvement

Engineering Innovation in Health (EIH) develops technical solutions to pressing challenges in health. We welcome projects from your company that will benefit from a collaborative working team of industry professionals, UW students, and faculty.

Benefits

By participating in EIH, you have the opportunity to:

Develop innovative technical solutions that bring value to your company.
Vet a solution to a challenging problem, perhaps one that you don’t have the resources to pursue in-house.
Generate a deeper understanding of a health challenge, market, current solutions, intellectual property, and regulatory strategy that engages a comprehensive set of stakeholders.
Work closely with a diverse group of UW students and faculty from engineering, health sciences, and business.
Strengthen your relationship with the UW for recruiting student talent and for engaging in future projects.
Leverage world class infrastructure and facilities at UW.
Receive a nonexclusive commercial license to any project intellectual property developed by the student team or UW employees.

Involvement

The Engineering Innovation in Health program runs for 9 months. Projects typically start in the fall (October) and run for three quarters (ending in June).

Participating companies pay a sponsorship fee and designate an employee lead to mentor the team. The mentor meets with the team weekly to help them understand the problem in depth and guide the solution pathway.

Intellectual property is governed by existing federal and state laws and is subject to best practices of the University of Washington technology transfer office, CoMotion. A company wholly owns its existing intellectual property. A nonexclusive, commercial license will be granted to any project intellectual property developed by the student team or UW employees. Additional, pre-negotiated options for exclusive licenses have been standardized as part of the Washington Innovation Advantage Program.

The EIH process starts with industry sponsors or clinicians submitting a project idea that focuses on an unmet health challenge and ultimately ends with a working prototype solution, which can take the form of a device, process, or application. Project submissions are due on a rolling basis between May and August each year. We welcome you to reach out to us and discuss your ideas. Please contact E IHealth@uw.edu to learn more.

Submit a health challenge

Sample projects

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

BIBLOC: Bite Block Redesign »

Approximately 14.5 million orally invasive imaging procedures such as endoscopy, echocardiography, and bronchoscopy are performed annually in the U.S. A bite block is a single-use medical device designed to keep the mouth open during such imaging procedures. Unfortunately, commercially available products suffer from structural and/or material challenges that tend to result in unwanted complications such as patient injury (i.e. the bite block is too stiff and injures patient’s teeth) and equipment damage (i.e. the bite block gets dislodged and the patient bites down on the imaging device). BIBLOC is a redesigned bite block that is the result of numerous design iterations each taking into account surveys from various stakeholders and material properties testing. BIBLOC is an easily securable bite block providing dual protection of both the patient and the imaging equipment.

InsuCon »

Incorrect administration of insulin (e.g., too little, too much, or at wrong times) can result in transient and serious hypo- and hyperglycemia, wide glycemic excursions, and diabetic ketoacidosis. Special care must be taken to ensure that correct dose of insulin is administered. A report of cases in which providers asked patients to demonstrate his or her insulin injection technique identified serious flaws in insulin selfadministration. In one case, a patient was not properly using an insulin pen and so was unaware that she was not getting any insulin at all. In addition, the recommended practice of priming the pen before each injection to remove air from the needle reduces the insulin dose to be administered. There is a need to accurately confirm the dose of insulin injected, thus providing more reliable and accurate treatment.

Biloccult »

Biloccult is an innovative point of care test for frontline health care providers to reliably screen for neonates with bilious vomiting to identify and prevent intestinal damage by detecting the presence of bile in infant vomit. Within 30 minutes of contact with the sample, the results window will show a clear and binary response to the presence of bile with minimal contact to the vomit. In contrast to the current method of visual inspection, our solution uses antibodies specific to bile indicators, and a novel filtration system to enable rapid and specific detection of bile in newborn vomit.