Healthcare is moving from hospitals to homes. Rising healthcare costs are sparking a shift in focus from disease treatment to disease prevention and management, i.e., from reactive to proactive care. Today, many of the diseases that have the greatest impact on healthcare are preventable, can be detected early, and are manageable. The effects of this shift in healthcare delivery can be seen in the consumer market, which is booming with healthcare and wellness products and services and with the rise in wearable technologies. Consumer products and services enable users to actively manage their healthcare and generate meaningful data to detect, prevent and manage health risks.
This IPRO project will explore opportunities of biodesign innovation in the consumer space through design thinking. The IPRO team will frame problems, define target users and user needs, generate concepts representing potential solutions, and create feasible, viable products and/or services that would engage users in practive healthcare activities. The outcome of this IPRO project is expected to offer one or more proof-of-concept prototypes along with a five-minute pitch that tells the story of the product or service that the prototype represents.
Through this IPRO experience, students from various disciplines will gain experience in:
