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Industry

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 Soyoung Kang to learn more.


Submit a health challenge

Sample projects

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

CathAlign: Automatic Pressure Transducer Leveling »

Treatment decisions in Critical Care are made based on readings from external transducers that are manually leveled (by eye or by leveler) to the phlebostatic axis. A clinician may level the external transducer 2-3x per hour based on patient activity or questionable readings. CathAlign combines a novel sensing solution with ehanced transducer attachement safety features to improve nursing workflow and reduce avoidable hospital errors.

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.

Beta Watch »

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is a lifelong illness that requires careful management of blood glucose levels and lifestyle choices. This illness especially impacts young adults, who need to learn to manage their illness while learning to take on independence and responsibility during their transition to adulthood. Beta Watch's solution addresses the need for a way for young adults recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) to help manage and monitor their symptoms to reduce the stress and burden caused by T1D. Their solution is a medical storage accessory that can be attached to a mobile phone. The Beta Watch case will safely and discretely house all the daily essentials that a T1D patient needs. This solution is paired with mobile application recommendations to raise awareness of existing tools that will help T1D patients manage their illness.