Ebola is one of the most virulent diseases on the planet. Spread through contact with the bodily fluids of somebody who is infected, its symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding. The average fatality rate is an astonishing 50 per cent.
When an outbreak begins, health organizations rush to contain the disease while treating patients. Quick intervention can save lives and reduce transmission. But in remote areas, including rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease is most common, it can take two to six weeks to set up a mobile clinic.
This was the motivation for the launch of INITIATE², a five-year initiative bringing together emergency response actors and research and academic institutions to create innovative and standardized solutions to health emergencies. The first project developed under this program is an Infectious Disease Treatment Module (IDTM), with researchers from Carleton University, a member of the World Health Organization’s Téchne network, contributing to its design.
The IDTM is a rapidly deployable patient-focused treatment centre designed to enhance the quality of medical care, infection prevention and control, patient comfort and community acceptance.
Supported by Grand Challenges Canada, Carleton industrial design program director Chantal Trudel and her team are focusing on one of its key elements: a transparent plastic screen separating health-care workers in “a low-risk zone” from patients in a contaminated “high-risk zone.” A glove box allows doctors or nurses to reach inside to treat a patient, performing “high acuity” procedures such as intubation without getting exposed to pathogens.
Among other features are a slider to safely pass medical supplies into the high-risk zone without air escaping, and a cable management system for safely feeding cables and tubing through the screen.
This setup, Trudel explains while demonstrating a prototype inside Carleton’s Abilities Living Laboratory, allows health-care workers to see patients and quickly treat people in distress while their colleagues don personal protective equipment to provide more comprehensive care. Patients can see care providers on the other side of the screen, as well as family members a safe distance away, which helps make the experience less traumatic.
“This is not only an effective way to curtail outbreaks of hemorrhagic viruses, it’s also a more humanitarian approach,” says Trudel.
“Health-care design has traditionally been driven by a biomedical-focused approach, but now innovations are focused on family- and community-centred models, even in the most challenging areas like infection prevention and control.”
Simulation Exercise a Success
At a simulation exercise held late last year in Accra, Ghana, an IDTM with all of the required medical equipment was set up in one day.
Trudel took a series of prototypes to Accra to demonstrate the transparent screen, which was refined and further evaluated in February at the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot in Brindisi, Italy.
“When you’re doing health-care design,” says Trudel, “you’re constantly thinking about the footprint and volume of the space and putting every single piece of medical equipment, furniture and feature in an ergonomic position.”
Moreover, the Carleton team — which includes industrial design master’s students Ben Tripp and James Lee, undergraduate Kennedy Chan, and alumni research assistants Martin Eisert and Shaghayegh Kalantari — must keep in mind the “manufacturability” of every component.
“Most of the components have such a specialized function that currently they are all custom-made — none are off the shelf,” says Trudel. “Every detail matters.”
Focus on Functionality and Positive Impact
To give communities dealing with outbreaks better access to systems like this, the design blueprints for the transparent screen will all be open source and many of the parts will be able to be 3D printed. Design files will be freely available so health agencies can fabricate the screens on their own and install them as needed to supplement existing health infrastructure.
“This is a unique, outward project because we want it to be accessed by as many people as possible,” says Tripp.
“It’s really rewarding to be working on improving the experiences of patients and clinicians in very challenging circumstances.”
“This is exactly what I want to do,” says Lee. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to have a positive impact on people’s lives.”
“We’re designing an environment for people who are in extreme distress,” says Chan, “so we had to create a space that’s as comforting as possible.”
“But it also has to be functional,” says Kalantari, whose role involved creating a virtual reality model of the treatment module.
“So many different elements have to come together for this to be effective.”
And for an innovation like this to succeed, so many different people have to come together first.
