Participatory Design for Surgical Innovation in the Developing World
The field of surgery is very much a technology-mediated practice. Unfortunately, locally appropriate medical equipment is largely unavailable, or in the case of Western donated devices, is non-functional in much of the developing world. This paper present
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Abstract The field of surgery is very much a technology-mediated practice. Unfortunately, locally appropriate medical equipment is largely unavailable, or in the case of Western donated devices, is non-functional in much of the developing world. This paper presents two critical challenges that face medical device manufacturers and designers looking to innovate in international surgery, and proposes a methodology to address these concerns. First, designers approach the process with a set of embedded assumptions and biases that are rooted in their experience of traditional markets, thus delimiting the solution space too narrowly. Second, designers working cross-culturally with expert users face numerous difficulties in understanding the problem space. Through a reflective process within both a Canadian and Ugandan context, this study proposes that the assumptions Western designers hold can be challenged to co-create and uncover innovative technology solutions in international surgery. Keywords Medical device
Design Emerging markets International surgery
1 Introduction The global burden of disease from trauma and injury is estimated at 5 million deaths annually and contributes upwards of 20 million disabilities, with over 90 % of those deaths taking place in the developing world [1, 2]. This problem is largely F. Gheorghe (&) H. F. M. Van der Loos Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada e-mail: [email protected] H. F. M. Van der Loos e-mail: [email protected]
A. Chakrabarti and R. V. Prakash (eds.), ICoRD’13, Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1050-4_54, Ó Springer India 2013
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aggravated due to the lacking technical capacity to safely and efficiently manage surgical cases across these regions. This epidemic is expected to grow in the coming decades, with injury from traffic accidents alone estimated to move from 8 to 4th place as leading cause of disability in the world by the year 2030 [3]. This untreated burden of disease unfortunately has a disproportionally negative role in overall social and economic development, as those killed and disabled for life are often the breadwinners on whom families and entire communities depend. While much of this disability and mortality can be prevented through timely access to surgical intervention, there is currently a major gap in provision of surgical care in the developing world [1]. Hospitals in these regions lack the technical resources to manage and effectively treat the vast numbers of patients who present with trauma every day [4]. Efforts over the past decades to equip developing world hospitals with donated medical technology have largely failed. In some cases, developing countries depend on foreign donations for up to 95 % of their equipment, though studies from 16 countries across Asia, Africa, and South America have found that 80 % of these donated technologies fail within the first year [4]. As many as 39 % of all donated te
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