Design of an Eye-Screening Device to Detect Retinopathy of Prematurity in India

This report presents the process and results of the graduation project of Wouter Horstink at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. The project is titled: “Design of a handheld screening device to detect Retinopathy of Prematurity in India.” Retinopathy of Prematurity (RoP) is an eye ailment that can cause premature infants to get blind. Since the disease is only detectable after an eye examination, most of the premature infants need to be screened by taking images of their retina. Since there is only one doctor per 80.000 infants in India, finding these patients is a big challenge and a telemedicine system would apply. Currently, an expensive product called RETCAM (Clarity Medical Systems) is used in a few telemedicine programs to find patients that need treatment. The company Forus Health in Bangalore (India) is addressing this issue and has the ambition to develop an affordable device that is suited for the Indian context. The student (author) is asked to reside in Bangalore for a period of four months and develop an industrial design proposal with the focus on ergonomics and usability. The application of methods from the IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit leads to requirements for product design regarding: Indian healthcare context, user preferences, available technology, user ergonomics and infant safety. After developing principles (chapter 9) and concepts (chapter 10) that involved several user evaluation sessions, conclusions were stated as follows: “There is a need for a handheld precision camera that is able to contact the eye and is operated with integrated controls.” A design proposal is presented in chapter 11 that has characteristics for precision screening including: The use of an ergonomic support that ensures stable operation of the device, even while operating the integrated controls. An ergonomic product casing design that allows for an ergonomic precision grip by its small diameter. A volume arrangement that is suitable for the proposed technology components provided by Forus Health. The product (presented in chapter 11) was evaluated by novice users and experts in a qualitative way with the use of detailed prototypes (chapter 12). Conclusions and recommendations that are presented include the expected success of the design proposal with regards to safety and usability. A list of recommendations is presented to advise about further development of the product. User research had a significant impact on the design process and this method was evaluated (chapter 14) to be successful in the way it helped in solving complex usability issues. The use of prototypes as main tool for generating ideas (IDEO Toolkit) was evaluated to be extremely useful in solving non-standard ergonomic problems.

Subject

Retinopathy of Prematurity
R.o.P.
India
Medical
Telemedicine

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Embargo date

2014-08-15

Access restriction

Campus only

Part of collection

Student theses

Document type

master thesis

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Files

campus only