Turning Healthcare Workers Into Hackers

Doctors and nurses in North and South America are learning new ways to use off-the-shelf materials to hack into medical equipment and forge new devices that can improve patient care. MakerHealth, a company that provides training and resources to healthcare providers, is now helping nurses and doctors hack medical devices to create new tools and devices that can better serve the needs of their patients. The company, born out of MIT’s Little Devices Lab,  specializes in turning healthcare workers into makers and designers, by offering the tools and insights necessary to help clinicians and healthcare workers innovate wherever they are, with whatever tools they have at their disposal. Using everyday materials, MakerHealth has helped create a bevy of different devices, from pipe systems to irrigate wounds for burn victims, to nexpensive feeding-tube holders from off-the-shelf materials. In addition to training programs, the company also offers toolkits — a collection of materials and tools that can be used to hack hospital equipment — to help nurses and doctors in the field create and adapt existing technologies to fit their needs. The company even offers on-site makerspaces — a location where doctors and nurses can collaborate with each other, while also providing access to tools and training that can enable them to design, create, and innovate. As medical technologies continue to advance, the design process has begun to adapt as well. Medical device designers are begin...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Materials Design Source Type: news