Product Design Studio
The ninth leading cause of medical-error deaths in the United States involves infusion line confusion, and nearly 65 percent of those cases are related to the medication infusion line. MedLite ID was developed in honor of a 17 year old boy named Dusty who had acute myelogenous leukemia. His medical treatment required intensive chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and extended hospital stays. At one time Dusty had as many as five different IV lines in his body connected to eleven different infusion lines. Dusty’s step-father, Dr. Wayne Provost, founder of MedLite ID, watched the frustration caused when health care providers had to spend a long time locating the proper infusion lines for medication. In moments of crisis and quick actions, this frustration expanded. Dr. Provost decided there had to be a better way.
Swarm was tasked to develop a product solution that is simple to use in a critical moment, it needed to be disposable and fit under tight cost constraints; all within an extremely short development window. Swarm’s solution is a simple to use, disposable device that enables medical professionals to accurately and efficiently identify a single medication infusion line against similar infusion lines in any light setting. As for the quick turnaround requirement, after only 6 months of development, MedLite ID went to clinical trials.
A wireless product was a crucial directive from the beginning. Originally, the team considered bluetooth; however, the electronics are expensive and hard to use when pairing devices. Swarm quickly pivoted to Radio Frequency Chips (RF) which are cheap, simple and proven technology. This provided a huge cost savings over bluetooth technology and made the device easier to use.
Making the product easy to use in a critical situation was paramount. MedLite ID eliminates infusion confusion by providing indicators with built-in wireless LED technology at the medication bag, pump, and port of the medication infusion line. Each MedLite ID set is unique to its individual line and cuts the process of line identification to mere seconds.
Services
Engineering
Industrial Design
Electronics
Firmware Programming
Packaging
Cost Modeling
Prototyping
Manufacturing Support