Fold your own asthma spacer

Via Medgaget:

The Make blog reports the folks at Stanford's Design School and their School of Medicine have made a simple paper spacer for asthmatics. I'd heard of cola cola bottle spacers before, where you simply cut out the end of a cola bottle and use it as a spacer for your inhaler. The paper based sounds even better.

The project was introduced as one of Ashoka's Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare.

The fact that they use origami to do this, makes it pretty neat. I am curious how they got around to the problem of avoiding static cling to prevent the aerosol particle from sticking to the walls.

More at Medgadget

The Idea Generator

Are you stuck trying to find your next design....give this a try


Link at Idea Generator

Oral-lyn: Insulin inhaler

Everyone has heard of Exhubera by now and its huge dry powder inhaler. Other companies are working in similar systems. Oral-lyn is being developed by Generex and comes in an asthma inhaler form factor. It is mist as opposed to a dry powder, which makes it easier to inhale for most people.

You can buy it Ecuador! Yay!

More at Medgadget

Charmr: Great design arrives for diabetic patients

This a great video about a new type of insulin pump. Great industrial design is combined with smart features. Check out the video.



Hat tip to Medgadget

Back in business

We have a stack of posts ready to be released! It's moving season in Boston...

Credit Card tool

Credit card-sized tools are really neat. Brookstone sells a variety of them, but this one, made by BCB Survival USA includes a few thins that others lack such as a butterfly screw wrench, and a 4 position wrench. Wouldn't it be neat to talk to doctors and healthcare workers to find out what their dream credit card sized tool would be? It's cut plastic or metal, which would make fabrication real easy...let me know please.

Some ideas but again, open to suggestions:
- thermometer
- medicut scissor
- epi dispensers

More at Cool Tools

Microinsurance contest

Microinsurance is a very interesting concept. I particularly like the notion that a farmer, for instance, can insure his working hand, for very little money. I know, I know, it's not the total healthcare solution, etc...but still.

There is a competition with a €1000 purse for an idea to communicate what microinsurance is effectively. Nextbillion describes the rules

As (micro) health insurance is difficult to explain, the MIA invites proposals for innovative, intuitive and original ideas to explain the value proposition of health insurance for poor people and grassroots groups. Proposals could include good stories, anecdotes, games, simulations, picture-stories, scripts for video clips or short movies and the like, to explain insurance to persons with no prior insurance experience.

So break out your short stories, claymation, graphic facilitation tools, videos, and give it shot!

more at Nextbillion