The project is making use of the Design Council’s ‘Double Diamond’ design method to provide a structure. The Double Diamond is also a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-recognised method for application in healthcare.
Katie, Pete and Dominic were the first to visit King George's Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow.
UK to India
This first visit focused on the first two phases of the double diamond:
- Discover the needs and concerns of patients receiving devices and how improvements in design and services would lead to better outcomes in the short and long term.
- Define the limitations of existing 3D design and production services and assess the feasibility of a range of potential improvements.
We identified early on that KGMU were actively seeking to implement digital design and 3D printing technologies to help improve patient care and workflow efficiency. This would be funded from a separate stream of money. The Co-MEDDI project is therefore an ideal vehicle to help direct this investment and ensure positive impact to patient care and healthcare efficiency.
This 5 day visit included a conference programme, meetings with key stakeholders in local universities, meetings with healthcare specialists and patients.
We learned about how the current system is stratified based on a mix of public and private funding. Resources are extremely stretched, especially given the massive volume of patients, but capability is very high.
Numerous opportunities for advanced design engineering technologies were identified. The visit helped to shortlist these opportunities, identify technologies of the greatest value and research projects that would be required to achieve maximum benefit.
India to UK
Prof Mehrotra was joined by three colleagues. This visit included meetings and workshops at PDR and Morriston Hospital where the team also had the opportunity to use technologies commonly applied to healthcare.
Outreach trips to local industry and research partners also allowed the team to crystallise ideas around how technologies could be used in India and how circular economy approaches could be deployed.
Finally, a report detailing findings to date was developed the the UKIERI team.
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