Designing better medical products
Mar/22/09 11:35 Filed in: Medical devices | iPhone | Pharmaceuticals | Healthcare Policy | Medical products
I am an early adopter of any new technology, not only because I like new gadgets, but because I always expect the newer technology will have improved quality, power, and ease-of-use. Sometimes, I am quite pleased with the results, my iPhone from Apple being one of the better examples. More often than not, I find myself quite disappointed.
Without intending to be an uncritical fan of Apple (you can find those discussions in several other locations on the web), there are real reasons that the iPhone is simply the best cell phone on the market. First, it holds a good sampling of my music collection, eliminating one other device to carry with me. And that music is transferred to my iPhone by simply the most elegant piece of software I’ve ever used: iTunes. I hear people tell me that they can get music on their phones, but it takes work. I have no time to figure out arcane programming steps to get music on some other device. The music simply gets onto my iPhone, I can access it. That’s the ballgame for me.
Second, I have downloaded and installed onto my iPhone dozens of Apps, which are the programs for the iPhone. I have games, access to sports scores real time, business news, stock prices, maps, movies, Kindle books (this is a whole story in itself), and an amazing program that listens to music and identifies it (and it’s free). Using iTunes, I can buy the apps (many are free, but you still have to “purchase” them) at the iTunes store, and upload them to my iPhone. At its essence, iPhone has made my life easier.
Those points are nice, but there’s something more. The iPhone is designed to be used easily and quickly, it is the perfect marriage of form and function. It is not overly complex, yet it is useful beyond what can be expected of a cell phone. It makes my life easier in a lot of ways, from allowing me to know when my Syracuse Orange are playing in the NCAA Tournament to quickly accessing information about a new medical product through a web browser that is no different than the one on your laptop computer.
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t design medical equipment. About two years ago, Amy Tenderich, a San Francisco-based freelance writer who was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes in her late 30’s, wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, in her blog. Basically, she was asking Apple to design medical equipment, specifically consumer blood glucose monitors. In other words, if Apple can make a great iPod or iPhone, what about an iMonitor!
I once spent a few days testing out a few consumer blood glucose monitors for my own use. I wanted to monitor my blood sugars during the day, especially after strenuous exercise. If you haven’t used one, I cannot even begin to explain the difficulty in using them. First, you have to get blood. Not a lot, so most companies provide lancets that a spring loaded, so that the needle penetrates the skin to just a few millimeters. There are a couple that are easy to use, but most require a bit of effort to put together. I did not like most of them, and chose to use a fairly expensive, but well-designed BD Genie Lancet. It uses a push button that quickly extends and retracts the needle into a protective housing.
But the monitors themselves must have been designed by individuals who never once spoke to a user. None of them are backlit, so they are impossible to read in low lighting. They were actually impossible to read in bright lights too. Their batteries did not last too long. It was difficult to figure out how to save information for logging elsewhere. Of course, it’s asking way too much to find a way to transfer the information from the monitor to your computer for analysis.
Moving on from blood glucose monitoring, most medical equipment just isn’t designed to be simple yet accurate and informative. Electronic blood pressure monitors can give variable results if not used properly, but the instructions for use can be complex, and the design does not provide ergonomic hints on proper use. As the equipment’s function becomes more complex, the requirement for proper design becomes higher, yet it almost appears as if engineers at medical products companies surrender to the trolls of complexity and make little effort to marry simple design with accurate results.
As the medical world moves to a paperless office, various medical equipment needs to work with one another, probably over a wireless network. Welch-Allyn, a manufacturer of physician-office equipment, is one of the leaders in connectivity of various medical instruments. Unfortunately, they don’t make a blood glucose monitor.
So, we’re back to Apple. Strategically, they are probably not going to get into the medical products arena (they’re making too much money from the iPod franchise, I suppose; the lack of marketing knowledge of medical products probably is another). Last week, they announced the next version of the operating system, iPhone OS 3.0. Exciting to iPhone users, but also to users of medical products, the new operating system supports accessories. Like blood glucose monitors. In fact, Johnson & Johnson’s LifeScan division was a part of the media blitz surrounding the new OS, by discussing a new blood glucose monitor that works with the iPhone. In one program, the iPhone reads your blood glucose (still have to lance your finger to get that drop of blood) from the OneTouch Ping, tracks food intake and exercise, and makes estimates on insulin dosage. Good job Apple and LifeScan.
Now Apple, if you have time, can you redesign...oh never mind.
By Michael W Simpson
Without intending to be an uncritical fan of Apple (you can find those discussions in several other locations on the web), there are real reasons that the iPhone is simply the best cell phone on the market. First, it holds a good sampling of my music collection, eliminating one other device to carry with me. And that music is transferred to my iPhone by simply the most elegant piece of software I’ve ever used: iTunes. I hear people tell me that they can get music on their phones, but it takes work. I have no time to figure out arcane programming steps to get music on some other device. The music simply gets onto my iPhone, I can access it. That’s the ballgame for me.
Second, I have downloaded and installed onto my iPhone dozens of Apps, which are the programs for the iPhone. I have games, access to sports scores real time, business news, stock prices, maps, movies, Kindle books (this is a whole story in itself), and an amazing program that listens to music and identifies it (and it’s free). Using iTunes, I can buy the apps (many are free, but you still have to “purchase” them) at the iTunes store, and upload them to my iPhone. At its essence, iPhone has made my life easier.
Those points are nice, but there’s something more. The iPhone is designed to be used easily and quickly, it is the perfect marriage of form and function. It is not overly complex, yet it is useful beyond what can be expected of a cell phone. It makes my life easier in a lot of ways, from allowing me to know when my Syracuse Orange are playing in the NCAA Tournament to quickly accessing information about a new medical product through a web browser that is no different than the one on your laptop computer.
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t design medical equipment. About two years ago, Amy Tenderich, a San Francisco-based freelance writer who was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes in her late 30’s, wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, in her blog. Basically, she was asking Apple to design medical equipment, specifically consumer blood glucose monitors. In other words, if Apple can make a great iPod or iPhone, what about an iMonitor!
I once spent a few days testing out a few consumer blood glucose monitors for my own use. I wanted to monitor my blood sugars during the day, especially after strenuous exercise. If you haven’t used one, I cannot even begin to explain the difficulty in using them. First, you have to get blood. Not a lot, so most companies provide lancets that a spring loaded, so that the needle penetrates the skin to just a few millimeters. There are a couple that are easy to use, but most require a bit of effort to put together. I did not like most of them, and chose to use a fairly expensive, but well-designed BD Genie Lancet. It uses a push button that quickly extends and retracts the needle into a protective housing.
But the monitors themselves must have been designed by individuals who never once spoke to a user. None of them are backlit, so they are impossible to read in low lighting. They were actually impossible to read in bright lights too. Their batteries did not last too long. It was difficult to figure out how to save information for logging elsewhere. Of course, it’s asking way too much to find a way to transfer the information from the monitor to your computer for analysis.
Moving on from blood glucose monitoring, most medical equipment just isn’t designed to be simple yet accurate and informative. Electronic blood pressure monitors can give variable results if not used properly, but the instructions for use can be complex, and the design does not provide ergonomic hints on proper use. As the equipment’s function becomes more complex, the requirement for proper design becomes higher, yet it almost appears as if engineers at medical products companies surrender to the trolls of complexity and make little effort to marry simple design with accurate results.
As the medical world moves to a paperless office, various medical equipment needs to work with one another, probably over a wireless network. Welch-Allyn, a manufacturer of physician-office equipment, is one of the leaders in connectivity of various medical instruments. Unfortunately, they don’t make a blood glucose monitor.
So, we’re back to Apple. Strategically, they are probably not going to get into the medical products arena (they’re making too much money from the iPod franchise, I suppose; the lack of marketing knowledge of medical products probably is another). Last week, they announced the next version of the operating system, iPhone OS 3.0. Exciting to iPhone users, but also to users of medical products, the new operating system supports accessories. Like blood glucose monitors. In fact, Johnson & Johnson’s LifeScan division was a part of the media blitz surrounding the new OS, by discussing a new blood glucose monitor that works with the iPhone. In one program, the iPhone reads your blood glucose (still have to lance your finger to get that drop of blood) from the OneTouch Ping, tracks food intake and exercise, and makes estimates on insulin dosage. Good job Apple and LifeScan.
Now Apple, if you have time, can you redesign...oh never mind.
By Michael W Simpson