EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Free discussion Researching defibrillators - need help with my des

Hi,
my name is Emily. I'm currently a 3rd year Graphic Design student at Ravensbourne college of design and communication. My classmate Colm and I are currently working on an RSA competition rsa brief called 'design for patients safety'.

Basically we are trying to come up with a design solution to stop accident caused by human error. Our current idea is a colour coding system specifically aimed at defibrillators.

Now that we have come up with basic designs we have been told by our tutor we need to ask people who use these machines to make sure they make sense. A very helpful man at Philip Medical called Stuart Clark pointed me in the direction of this forum. He said that if I showed you guys our designs maybe you could give us some feedback? We have applied our designs to the Philip's Heartstart XL but the idea is that this coding system can be applied to all defibrillators and even other types of medical equipment.

So I guess what I'm asking is if I show you our designs would you be able to give me some feedback? It would be so beneficial to our project. I have the designs in a .pdf but I'm not sure how to upload it. If you want I can convert it into .jpg's. Please let me know.

Thank you and sorry for such a long message,
Emily

Yes Emily, I'm sure we would all like to see what you're up to. Just as long as you don't mind a bit of "constructive criticism", that is! Ha, ha.

.jpg files can be uploaded into the Gallery section easily enough (Gallery -> New Image -> Image Manager). Unless you have a URL link to your work, that is.

I expect you could also attach your .pdf to an email to our beloved moderator (Huw), but I don't think he's around just at the moment. Lastly, if you must get this out before the weekend, email it to me and I'll make sure Huw gets it (for publishing on the site).

Brilliant, thank you.

That would be great if I could e-mail it to you to pass on to Huw. Do I send it to the hotmail address in your profile?

Emily

Either that or directly to Huw at huw@ebme.co.uk

Hey,
I just e-mailed it to you. I thought that if I e-mailed it to Huw he wouldn't know what it was about.

Got it Emily. It's looking good. I'll pass it to Huw with a request that he gets it "pinned up" on the site somehow. Cheers.

PS: having just had a look at your nicely laid out .pdf, here's a bit of "instant feedback":- to maximize any value in the comments that you may receive later, perhaps you need to explain the rationale of, or thinking behind, your colour coding. How does it improve the design of the Heartstart XL as it currently stands, for instance? Why green and pink (looks more like magenta) for the paddles? ... etc. Have you looked at AHA, ISO and BS guidelines and codes? Many defibs have used the simple 1-2-3 approach in the past (gets around any possibility of user colour-blindness)!

Here is the pdf - attachments are now allowed in this category.

I'm not sure how the colour coding is going to help in an emergency situation.
The Heartstart XL can also be used with disposable multi-function electrodes which have their position drawn on the back.

I agree with Kawasaki that colour coding is not really going to help in an emergency situation. The main problem is that you would probably need an international agreement on what the three colours would be! Then everyone would have to memorise it, and as we all know on this forum, getting clinical staff to learn even the most basic thing about their equipment is a trial.
I think 1, 2, 3, is so much easier for everyone to understand when all about you people are running around in the chaos of a crash call. It may be that this colour coding could be used on less critical equipment like ventilators etc when there is more time to set up the machines before they are actually used.
It's not a bad idea, just one that I think would be very difficult to implement across international borders.

Good luck - John

As an aside, I seem to recall some work done (I think, by the US Air Force) on standardization of alarms, "bleep tones" etc., on patient monitoring equipment used in critical (noisy) areas (might be worth checking on the web). Yet another rich seam worth researching, perhaps? Anybody got any research funding?