Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Making Medical Devices Consumer-Friendly
Not all medical devices need to be ugly, clunky and hard to use--or, at least, that's the premise of the 2009 DiabetesMine design contest, which is sponsored by the California Health Care Foundation and will award $10,000 to the best, most innovative, patient-friendly device or web application designed for diabetes patients. The contest got its start a few years ago when DiabetesMine blogger Amy Tenderich wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs asking the Apple chief to sponsor a design contest to address the lack of usability and poor aesthetics of most medical devices.
Though Apple has not played a role in the contest, the concept stuck. Last year's contest winners included a team behind Log for Life, a web service aimed at making it easier for patients to track test results via text messaging and other tools, and in the under 18 category, Maximum Slide, designed to dispense test strips one-at-a-time. Like last year's contest. the 2009 contest should provide a unique window into how insights from consumer electronics and other design heavy fields might one day find their way into the medical world.