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Pop the Champagne! Firefly Has Treated Over 1,000 Newborns!

We are excited to announce that Firefly has treated over 1,000 newborns in Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia! While 1,000 newborns treated is an amazing milestone, we are even more excited that the 72 devices currently distributed will treat over 35,000 newborns during their lifetime. 

Firefly’s unique double sided design allows it to reduce treatment times by almost 50%, but more importantly, allows for effective treatment of severe jaundice allowing infants around the world to avoid dangerous exchange transfusions, which require all of the blood in the newborn to be replaced. We have already seen Firefly’s impact as it has entered areas rife with severe jaundice, like Myanmar. We can't wait to tell the story of the next 1,000 or 10,000 babies treated as we plow ahead in helping to address jaundice worldwide.

Design that Matters would like to express our sincere thanks to our Firefly project partners the East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services. Their partnership made Firefly possible.

Additional thanks to Firefly’s lead donors: The Lemelson Foundation, The van Otterloo Family, Bohemian Foundation, an anonymous donor, ANT Italy - Friends of Trento Neonatology, The Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and Martin and Debbie Hale.

Firefly Featured in World Health Organization's Compendium of Health Technologies

Whoa! Big news, Firefly is featured in the World Health Organization 2013 Compendium of innovation health technologies for low-resource settings. The WHO describes “The objective of the compendium series of innovative medical devices, assistive devices and eHealth solutions is to provide a neutral platform for technologies which are likely to be suitable for use in less resourced settings.” 

We are elated that Firefly was chosen by the WHO’s panel of industry and global health experts. Inclusion in the compendium, assembled by the leading institution on world health, will spread the news of Firefly throughout the world, and create a greater demand for this unique, lifesaving device!

Design that Matters would like to express our sincere thanks to our Firefly project partners the East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services. Their partnership made Firefly possible.

Additional thanks to Firefly’s lead donors: The Lemelson Foundation, The van Otterloo Family, Bohemian Foundation, an anonymous donor, ANT Italy - Friends of Trento Neonatology, The Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and Martin and Debbie Hale.

DtM Welcomes Suzanne Graves to Our Board of Advisors

We are happy to announce that DtM donor and friend, Suzanne Graves, has joined our board of advisors! Suzanne is the first New York based member of our Board of Advisors, stretching our advisor network from Alaska to New York city! 

Suzanne manages the Machina Trading LTD family office funds, which invests in hedge funds and private equity – with a focus on angel and growth capital investing. Suzanne has fifteen years of experience in management roles with finance and technology companies both in NYC and Seattle. Suzanne is an investor and close advisor to Artivest Inc., a NYC-based financial tech company delivering curated electronic access to private funds. She serves on the Board of HalsaMD, which focuses on building facilities specializing in bariatric medicine.

Previously, Suzanne served as COO of Area 51 LLC, a market neutral hedge fund. Suzanne held management positions at CourtLink (now subsidiary of Lexis Nexis) as well as Destinations/Teren Corp. (acquired by Galileo International). She received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Washington.  Suzanne lives in New York City with her husband and twin sons. Suzanne is originally from Vietnam and immigrated to the United States in 1975.

DtM Forms New Pelican Team at MIT + RISD

We have launched our first Project Pelican student team to tackle newborn pneumonia! The DtM Pelican project pitch attracted a nine-member multidisciplinary team from the MIT & Rhode Island School of Design Product Design and Development course.

The team, composed of industrial designers from RISD, MBA candidates from MIT Sloan, and engineers from MIT will spend the semester crafting everything from the Pelican business plan to looks-like and works-like prototypes. We are excited to welcome Leah Chung, Phillip Daniel, Keiichi Onishi, Esther Mangan, Aditya Ranjan, Shubhang Tandon, Kevin Wiesner, Wei Wu, and Victoria Young to the ever growing list of DtM collaborators. We can't wait to see what they create this semester!

- Will Harris, IDSA
  DtM Designer

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Say Hello to Project Pelican!

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Say hello to Project Pelican, DtM’s new program to design a pulse oximeter to diagnose newborns with pneumonia. Keeping with the animal themed project names from our most successful projects, Kinkajou and Firefly, the name Pelican was chosen due to the way a pulse oximeter hugs a newborn’s foot reminding us of a Pelican beak.

ABOUT PELICAN
A 2013 Unicef report revealed pneumonia is the leading cause of child deaths worldwide. In 2012, over 1.1 million children, including 330,000 newborns, died of pneumonia. To put this in perspective, 132,000 children died from AIDS, and 462,000 children died from Malaria. Though 1 in 4 childhood pneumonia deaths are newborns, technology targeting newborns remains overlooked. A pulse oximeter is the best way to identify newborns in need of oxygen, and diagnose pneumonia. We are currently designing a spot check pulse oximeter to solve this overlooked problem, and reach 1 million newborns. 

NeoNurture Exhibited in Ireland!

NeoNurture was shipped to Science Gallery in Dublin to be exhibited at Fail Better. Much like Tim’s TEDxBoston talk, Fail Better highlights the importance of failure in design and innovation and features some of the “world’s greatest failures” by famous explorers, inventors, scientists, and athletes. The exhibit includes work from design and engineering greats like James Dyson and Eben Upton, the creator of Raspberry Pi! This is NeoNurture’s first time on exhibit in Europe and will hopefully inspire a whole new generation of great minds to create context-appropriate technology for the developing world.

DtM Fabricates CAMTech Infant Resuscitator Models for Instant Feedback in Uganda

At a check-in meeting mid-month at the MGH Center for Global Health, Dr. Kris Olson mentioned that the lead engineer for CAMTech’s Augmented Infant Resuscitator (AIR) project was headed to Uganda to test their engineering prototype. CAMTech had worked with an industrial designer to create a set of renderings - photo images depicting the final product appearance. During DtM’s experiences in the field, we found that physical models always generate richer feedback than photos, so we offered to help. 

Less than 48 hours after our meeting, Tim presented physical models built on DtM’s 3D printer converting three of their design sketches into reality. Thanks to some speedy design work from Will, who had to come in after hours because of jury duty, the prototypes were precise enough to screw into existing threads on existing Laerdal masks, illustrating how AIR will add functionality to existing resuscitators. The next week, CAMTech team member Kevin Cedrone was in Uganda, testing the concepts with target users. Tim says, Buck Rodgers! 

DtM Welcomes David Solomon as Our New Interaction Intern

On January 23, David Solomon joined Design that Matters as our new Interaction Intern, a half-year full-time position. In his third year in Northeastern’s undergraduate Computer Engineering program, David brings eight years of rapid prototyping experience from his role as a student leader at the South End Technology Center in Boston.

David is currently in his third year at Northeastern University pursuing a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering. He comes to DtM with experience in electronics, coding, digital design, circuit design, and fabrication from his work in the Fab Lab at South End Technology Center and his studies. His experience spans operating laser cutters, vinyl cutters, and 3D printers to using programs such as LibreOffice Draw, Inkscape, Arduino, and Eagle to design multiple projects. David has helped instruct young people in the use of Fab Lab machines, so that they can take a spontaneous idea and transform it into something tangible right before their eyes. 

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Firefly Arrives in Myanmar!

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In recent news, East Meets West Foundation (EMW) delivered 40 Firefly devices to 22 hospitals across Myanmar! This is extremely exciting as the country was only recently opened up for international aid agencies in 2011, ending the isolation that has prevented outside intervention, most recently leading the UN to note the unprecedented lack of international access available after Cyclone Nargis killed over 130,000 people in 2008. 

In East Meets West partner hospitals in Myanmar, health care staff are giving 1000 exchange blood transfusions a year. EBT is the jaundice treatment of last resort, requiring total replacement of a newborn’s blood supply. If the rates at EMW partners hospitals are similar at other hospitals in Myanmar, this would mean 5000 EBTs a year countrywide. Luciano Moccia, International Coordinator of Breath of Life for EMW commented, “severe jaundice is by far the biggest problem in Myanmar.”

This is an astronomical number when compared to the number of such procedures done in first world settings. Dr. Steven Ringer, Chief of Newborn Medicine at Brigham and Women’s, mentioned he had seen only one blood exchange transfusion for newborn jaundice performed in the U.S. during his 30+ year career. We hope Firefly’s introduction into Myanmar eliminates the severe jaundice that plagues the country.

- Will Harris, IDSA
  DtM Designer

Design that Matters would like to express our sincere thanks to our Firefly project partners the East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services. Their partnership made Firefly possible.

Additional thanks to Firefly’s lead donors: The Lemelson Foundation, The van Otterloo Family, Bohemian Foundation, an anonymous donor, ANT Italy - Friends of Trento Neonatology, The Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and Martin and Debbie Hale.

Coming Soon: Lessons from the Design and Launch of Firefly, with Support from the Lemelson Foundation

During Summer/Fall 2014, we look forward to presenting a series of essays sharing the lessons learned designing and launching Firefly Newborn Phototherapy. This blog series is made possible with support from The Lemelson Foundation in celebration of their 20-year history of improving lives through invention.

With visionary support from The Lemelson Foundation 2011-2013, Design that Matters formed a partnership with East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services to design, test, manufacture, and deliver innovations to serve the needs of poor communities around the world. Our first product is Firefly Newborn Phototherapy, a world-class technology to treat newborns with jaundice. 

Firefly has won many awards including the Edison Award Gold, the top Spark! design award, IDSA IDEA Silver, and was featured in the October 2013 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award issue. Firefly is listed in the 2013 World Health Organization Compendium of Medical Devices highlighting the most innovative health technologies for low resource settings. 

As of June 1 2014, Firefly devices have treated over 3,000 newborns in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, East Timor, Thailand, Malaysia, and Ghana. Together, we expect to distribute at least 1,000 Firefly devices, reaching over 500,000 newborns.

Design that Matters would like to express our sincere thanks to our Firefly project partners the East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer Medical Technology Transfer and Services. Their partnership made Firefly possible.

Additional thanks to Firefly’s lead donors: The Lemelson Foundation, The van Otterloo Family, Bohemian Foundation, an anonymous donor, ANT Italy - Friends of Trento Neonatology, The Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and Martin and Debbie Hale.

 

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