Collaborative Creative Design Process in Medical Device Development
DS 73-2 Proceedings of the 2nd International conference on Design Creativity Volume 2
Year: 2012
Editor: Duffy, A.; Nagai, Y.; Taura, T.
Author: Privitera, M. B.
Section: Creativity and Innovation
Page(s): 178-184
Abstract
Designing and developing a medical device is a complex exchange of ideas and theoretical concepts requiring multiple disciplines working towards viable solutions. It requires collaboration and cross-disciplinary effort between designers, clinical specialists, scientists, and engineers. This paper focuses on collaborative creativity between designers and physicians as well as the influence of design practice in order to advance conceptual theory. A total of 23 teams were given either a problem or a theoretical solution to design for six months to develop. Tangible results include 23 intellectual property disclosures, 12 provisional patents filed with 4 converted to non-provisional patent applications. The teams creative processes varied dependent upon the starting point of the design process and all included an increased reliance upon an interchange of disciplinary knowledge, trust, and concept experimentation. Smaller teams which were better able to identify key parameters of the design concept and subsequently generous robust solutions.
Keywords: medical device design, industrial design practice, collaborative creative design and process, creativity in a regulated environment, design of experiment, translational science