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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 EIHealth@uw.edu to learn more.

 

Submit a health challenge

 

Sample projects

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

In-Home Biofeedback for Pediatric Urinary Incontinence »

Pediatric urinary incontinence (UI), involuntary emptying of the bladder, affects more than 20-million people in the U.S., and 1 in 10 children will suffer from UI. In children with persistent UI that has not responded to conservative management and other directed therapies, an alternative form of treatment that has been shown to be very effective is biofeedback, or pelvic muscle floor training via the use of electrodes to measure muscle activity and provide feedback on the contraction and relaxation of the muscles. However, because these biofeedback devices are currently limited to clinical use, the outcome from biofeedback depends on the family's ability to travel to the hospital, pay for the therapy, and motivation of both the family and the child to participate in the unmonitored home-based training. This in-home biofeedback solution offers a creative in-home, mobile-based solution to clinical biofeedback with the use of electromyography with wireless transfer to a game-based biofeedback app specialized for children.

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.

SimpleSight »

When the adenoids are surgically removed, a laryngeal mirror is used to visualize the nasopharynx and guide the procedure. The mirror currently used during adenoidectomies makes visualization of the nasopharynx challenging due to its limited viewing angle, incomplete view of the nasopharynx and fogging of the mirror. With reduced vision of the nasopharynx, there is a risk of collateral damage to tissues near the adenoids, and it is challenging to teach adenoidectomy because it is challenging for both the teacher and student to visualize the nasopharynx at the same time. Currently, surgeons attempt to improve nasopharynx visualization by bending the mirror to improve the viewing angle and using anti-fog solution repeatedly throughout the procedure.