Short blog post this time around!

After weeks of brainstorming design improvements, understanding the context of Malawi’s available resources, and comparing our current iterations to the standard and/or existing models, our team felt prepared with the knowledge to ask more in-depth questions to our various stakeholders. Throughout this week, we had the opportunity to hear from the voices of end-users such as doctors and nurses as well as graduate students, engineering professors, non-profit leaders, and leaders of similar technological start-ups. Our conversations showed me that with each user, they all have different ideas and priorities in mind which should taken into holistic consideration. One of our stakeholders was interested in the manufacturing and engineering design process; he asked us questions that dug deep into why we decided on design X. For example, why was the intubation box a cube? Why did you select acrylic instead of plastic or glass? And, where are the resources from the current iteration coming from? It was really nice for us to start thinking about the production process of our devices, but also revisit the core issues that we are addressing in the first place. Four weeks into our internship, we are now taking a step back, see the bigger picture, and come up with different approaches to ensure physical distancing while addressing COVID-related clinical needs.

After our interviews, we were prompted with a few more questions that will define our future direction before we make a final recommendation to the design studios:

• What are the current disinfection methods in hospitals?
• What is the rationale behind the current designs?
• For the temperature sensor, is there a mathematical formula to accomodate for confounding factors such as ambient temperature and distance between the sensor and patient?
• How can our prototypes be modified to address the unique circumstances of rural areas vs. urban areas?
• What other screening devices can be implemented to reduce transmission of COVID-19?

Signing off,

Austin