ENT Inspection Kit
Bachelor Graduation Project | Individual | Spring, 2017 | Istanbul Technical University
Since the various types of cancer have been spreading due to increased smoking, smoked food, radiation and so on, observing the changes in the ear, nose and throat is essential for an early diagnosis and increased chance of successful treatment. ENT (Ear Nose Throat) Inspection Kit is a user-centred portable medical device that is designed for ENT doctors who operate and diagnose outside of the hospitals such as volunteer doctors at camps or war zones, with the aim to serve as an effective replacement for the more complex tools available within hospital facilities.
Keywords
Medical device, healthcare, portable product design
Stakeholder
ENT department at Acıbadem Hospital
My Role
Design research, concept development, prototyping
Challenge
In this project, I was supposed to design a user-centred medical device as a result of comprehensive user research, expected to discover real-life problems related to the subject and bring new design solutions with the potential to turn into start-up projects with an entrepreneurial approach.
Design Process
The usage of medical devices and the needs of doctors, researchers and patients were explored with a user-centred design and participatory design approaches to purpose a new medical device which addresses its users' needs.
Exploration
In order to understand the needs of doctors and patients better, I visited several different departments and carried out different research methods to investigate the needs and opportunities:
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Desk Research
Literature review, netnography and benchmark
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Observation
Of the practices, daily life and users' needs at Otorhinolaryngology Departments, a Microbiology Lab and dentists
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Face-to-Face & Semi-Structured Interviews
4 doctors from different fields, 4 ENT doctors, 2 nurses, 2 dentists, 3 microbiology lab researchers, 5 medicine students, 10 patients
Synthesis
Based on the exploration phase, a difficulty with inspections of the laryngeal area (located in the anterior compartment of the neck) has been noticed. Unlike the case with the ear or nose, the observations of this area are harder to make, thus making the diagnosis more difficult.
I collaborated with one of the professors who work on ENT and his team at Acıbadem Hospital. To define and display the problems, we applied the following methods:
“How Might We (HMW)” and “Fishbone Diagram” methods.
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How Might We
help ENT doctors to diagnose efficiently without using hospital facilities? -
Fishbone Diagram
Ideation & Prototyping
During the ideation and prototyping phase in order to generate ideas and discuss the possible obstacles several methods were used:
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Sketches
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User Scenario
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Physical Prototyping and Testing
The body and the apparatuses of some of the selected sketches were built with styrofoam, mock-up cardboard and paper. The prototypes were tested throughout the process by 2 ENT doctors and several patients.
Concept
In order to showcase and deliver the concept better, the following methods were used:
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Storyboard
Display the activities that users doing and the logic behind them -
3D Modelling and Rendering
The model was created on Rhinoceros and renderings were done on Keyshot
Final Design:
ENT (Ear Nose Throat) Kit is a portable tool that is designed for ENT doctors who operate and diagnose outside of the hospitals, with the aim to serve as an effective replacement for the more complex tools available within hospital facilities.
The main body of the kit has a comfortable grip, the case has a disinfector unit with a timer that helps doctors to collect disinfected endoscopes at the right time. Doctors are using workstations with endoscopes for observing the laryngeal areas at hospitals. However, doctors working outside of the hospital, for example, as volunteer doctors at camps or war zones are facing difficulties while diagnosing and treating their patients. Therefore designing a portable tool for ENT doctors can have tremendous advantages.
