This August, Design that Matters returned to Haiti to visit our partners at St Boniface Hospital. It was a busy trip, dodging between Tropical Storms Danny and Erika. We were able to check in on the two Firefly units that have been treating newborns at St Boniface for the last year, very exciting to see the blue phototherapy lights through the window of the NICU when we arrived the first night.
We brought two suitcases of Otter newborn warmer prototypes for evaluation by Director General Dr. Inobert Pierre and the staff at the hospital’s new maternity ward and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Among the hundreds of hospitals around the world like St Boniface that are already using Firefly, newborn warming is the number one new feature request. It was incredibly valuable to user-test the Otter Warmer concept both as an addition to Firefly and as a complement to conventional overhead phototherapy devices.
Finally, with the help of field producer extraordinaire Dave Pond from Microdocumentaries and support from the Autodesk Foundation, we shot some excellent user interviews and hospital footage: coming soon to an internet near you as a case study of design for social impact.