BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Looking to make cleaning a hospital environment more effective and efficient, the Partners Connected Health Innovation team worked with global lighting technology leader Osram to explore the use of light as a disinfectant. Osram’s headquarters for the Americas region is located in Wilmington, Massachusetts.
"Maintaining a sterile environment in the hospital is of the utmost importance to our patients, but is a complex process for our hospital staff, said Kamal Jethwani, MD, MPH, Senior Director, Partners Connected Health Innovation. "Our goal with Osram is to make this easy and 'user-centered' so that sterility management is no longer a chore for our staff. We strongly believe that this will enhance patient safety and clinical outcomes for all our hospitals.”
Osram designers, researchers and engineers worked with the Partners Connected Health Innovation User-Centered Design team throughout the four-month project. Seeing a new way to approach their work shed light on potential opportunities they hadn’t previously envisioned.
“Impactful innovation requires understanding end user and customer needs, not only in technology but in all industries,” said Rodrigo Pereyra, R&D Manager, Osram Innovation. “In working with the Innovation team at Partners Connected Health, we challenged our assumptions about sterilization and disinfection in healthcare by experiencing the staff’s pain points firsthand. By seeing things through their eyes, we are able to more effectively address their needs, and strive to create innovative solutions that will exceed their expectations. We are in the early stages of development right now, and are excited to work with Partners to unlock the potential of light-based disinfection.”
Field observations and interviews with physicians, nurses and cleaning staff revealed a host of challenges about cleaning in hospital settings, including intensive care units, in-patient immunocompromised units, surgical suites, outpatient clinics and community health centers. Among them were the high level of foot traffic within units, between units and throughout a hospital; the challenges of cleaning in crowded settings; and the invisible nature of disinfection and infection control.
This knowledge, paired with collaborative design-thinking workshops, produced just under 50 ideas, which were narrowed down to four prototype concepts. Clinical and non-clinical staff then provided feedback on an early-stage light-based disinfection prototype through user testing in a hospital setting. These insights will influence Osram’s future iterations of the prototype and inform future innovations in the area of light-based disinfection.
“Teaming up with researchers and staff at Partners Connected Health provided us with a great opportunity to gather important feedback in a short timeframe, and gave us insight into the daily needs inside large, complex healthcare institutions,” Pereyra said. “Partners hospitals have a tremendous reputation, and we’re proud to work alongside these leaders in medicine to develop new tools to help keep patients safe.”
ABOUT PARTNERS CONNECTED HEALTH
Partners
Connected Health, at Partners HealthCare, is leveraging information
technology – mobile phones, tablets, wearables, sensors and remote
health monitoring tools – to deliver quality patient care outside of
traditional medical settings. Partners Connected Health programs are
also helping providers and patients better manage chronic conditions,
maintain health and wellness and improve adherence, engagement and
clinical outcomes. The Connected Health team creates and deploys mobile
technologies in a number of patient populations and care settings, and
is conducting innovative research studies to test the effectiveness of
mobile health technologies in various clinical applications, including
medication adherence, care coordination, chronic disease management,
prevention and wellness. Partners
HealthCare, an integrated health system founded by Brigham and
Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, is one of the
nation’s leading biomedical research organizations and a principal
teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
ABOUT OSRAM SYLVANIA
OSRAM SYLVANIA is part of OSRAM
Americas, a group of OSRAM companies located in North and South
America. As a leader in lighting solutions and services specializing in
innovative design and energy-saving technology, the company sells
products under the brand names OSRAM, Traxon, ENCELIUM and SYLVANIA. The
portfolio ranges from high-tech applications based on semiconductor
technology, such as infrared or laser lighting, to smart and connected
lighting solutions in buildings and cities. The OSRAM SYLVANIA and OSRAM
Americas regional headquarters is located in Wilmington,
Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.osram-americas.com
or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
ABOUT OSRAM
OSRAM, based in Munich, is a globally leading
lighting manufacturer with a history dating back about 100 years. The
product portfolio includes high-tech applications based on semiconductor
technology such as infrared or laser lighting. The products are used in
highly diverse applications ranging from virtual reality, autonomous
driving or mobile phones to smart and connected lighting solutions in
buildings and cities. In automotive lighting, the company is the global
market and technology leader. Based on continuing operations (excluding
Ledvance), OSRAM had around 24,600 employees worldwide at the end of
fiscal 2016 (September 30) and generated revenue of almost €3.8 billion
in that fiscal year. The company is listed on the stock exchanges in
Frankfurt and Munich (ISIN: DE000LED4000; WKN: LED400; trading symbol:
OSR). Additional information can be found at www.osram.com.
OSRAM is a registered trademark of OSRAM GmbH.
ENCELIUM is a registered trademark of OSRAM SYLVANIA Inc.
All other
trademarks are those of their respective owners.
