Challenges in implementing digital health in clinical practice hinder its potential. The complexities posed by implementation could benefit from using design practices. To explore the current role of design practices in digital health implementation, designers in the Netherlands were interviewed. The preliminary results indicate that designers contribute to digital health implementation processes, especially in the early stages. Design practices are mainly used for engaging the users, testing concepts, aligning the ideas of stakeholders, and adapting interventions to fit within the contexts.

The paper explores the integration of emotional design elements in the development of medical devices to enhance user acceptance and adherence. It emphasizes the importance of a user-centered approach, acknowledging both functional and emotional needs. The study compares two cases within healthcare design, highlighting the impact of emotional design on users' perception of medical devices. Despite the different stages of development in the two cases, both employed a higher level of refflective design, aiming to create a lasting impact on users' identity using the products.

eHealth development faces the challenge of generating evidence about health effectiveness in real-world settings. Designers can potentially support this challenge but must understand health approaches to evidence generation about health outcomes. This case study investigates how health and care professionals conceptualise health outcomes and their evidence generation in eHealth. Our results identify three key conceptual dimensions: effect, meaning, and collection. We discuss how these inform future design competencies to support evidence generation about health outcomes in eHealth design.

Recent clinical trials have successfully slowed Alzheimer's disease dementia progression, but only in early-stage patients. Society must therefore shift to early diagnosis. By framing this is as an engineering design challenge, we argue that a systems approach will identify solutions by providing the means to validate dementia medical technologies from multiple levels and perspectives: society, government, public health, healthcare, and patient ecosystems. We show that new data-enabled design methods can facilitate these different granularities of thinking and outline the need for designers.

Students mental health is declining. StudyWell is a project aiming at positive impact on student mental health in student cities in Norway; by integrating relational welfare with service design, and the study environment as a starting point. We discussfour implementation challenges: First, co-design depends on a shared mindset across disciplinary boundaries. Secondly, balancing the lenses of individuals, community, system and future require facilitation. Thirdly, societal impact requires continuous partner anchoring. Finally, approaches must not further pathologize university student.

NHS Scotland, one of the keystone healthcare providers in the UK, have recently set a wide variety of sustainability targets in an effort to mitigate waste and the intensive energy demands of healthcare. Medical garment production, management and design is an area in which design researchers can explore and offer solutions. This paper presents a series of co-design explorations to examine design alternatives to single-use theatre caps, the majority of which are currently disposed of routinely. Using a series of probes, major insights into how theatre cap design may be improved is presented.

Wearable devices have some shared characteristics. They should conform to the wearer's size and shape, not interfere with desired activities, perform intended functions, be easily usable and comfortable, among others. Due to these shared characteristics, a common design methodology should be possible for designing wearables that assists designers in taking a systematic approach. We propose a configuration design method for wearables and sketch its elements. An example of a family of passive exoskeleton suits that assists with walking is presented to illustrate the configuration design process.

Introducing a Minimum Viable Product in the market and rapidly testing it proves valuable in assessing its value and potential. This involves experiments, gauging growth, and striving to diminish uncertainty in iterative cycles. The application of these approaches in healthcare, however, faces obstacles due to unique challenges including patient safety concerns and regulatory compliances. This paper undertakes a narrative literature review covering experiences of healthcare professionals and presents guiding considerations for medical startups to use in the market validation of their products.

We created a web-based design guide to transfer our previous research findings to better support design education in the digital health design area for improving patient experience. To seek insights to iteratively improve the design guide, we conducted a workshop with 19 MSc students who specialized in design for healthcare. The guide was perceived as having the potential to improve their understanding of digital PEx improvements, but the content clarity and information presentation need to be improved.

With the current strain on the healthcare service, wearable technology presents a solution. However, there is a lack of adoption from user groups due to a focus on clinical and financial factors. This study explores the implementation of positive design in medicine, outlining contributing factors to positive emotional experiences. Using a qualitative methodology in the form of semi-structured interviews with users and experts, a construct was defined consisting of five key psychological needs, including control, stimulation, competence, social factors, and purpose & growth.

In 3D printing, calibration is crucial for accurate prints, particularly those with complex or intricate features. This paper focuses on developing, manufacturing, and testing a benchmarking model to assess the dimensional accuracy of 3D printers. The aim is to evaluate the 3D printed model against a universally recognized real-world equivalent – a LEGO® brick – using its interlock function as a test with an engaging element. An interlock benchmarking framework aids further analysis of the model's performance, and a checklist for the model is provided for additional visual analysis.

Hybrid manufacturing enables to overcome additive manufacturing (AM) constraints regarding the maximum feasible part dimension and/or complexity through part separation and subsequent adhesive joining of AM sub-parts. To ensure structural integrity of the joint at a minimum use of substrate volume, the AM inherent freedom of design can be exploited by realizing 3D micro scarf adhesive joints. The performance of this novel adhesive joint design was assessed by conducting optical measurements and static tensile tests using samples fabricated by laser-based powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M).

The use of material extrusion (MEX) has increased rapidly due to the affordability of 3D printers. This has led to a growing demand for improved print quality, high fidelity, strength, or fast print times. In this study, a non-planar approach for better surface quality is investigated. The hardware of a 3-axis MEX printer was developed together with testing new software for non-planar slicing. The aim was to identify the most influential parameter combinations using design of experiments. A novel method for measuring surface quality was presented together with future research work.

Despite its significant advantages in terms of design freedom and the wide range of processable materials, the Binder Jetting technology has not yet received substantial attention in the healthcare field, especially concerning the fabrication of metal components. Hence, the paper investigates how this technology could be exploited to innovate the medical instrument field. Based on selected case studies, some preliminary design indications are derived on how to properly consider the various phases (i.e., printing, depowdering, and sintering) and related challenges of the Binder Jetting process.

Increasing adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) makes software support for design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) more relevant. This paper presents a novel, knowledge-driven design support tool for AM that leverages a central knowledge base to provide extensible and powerful DfAM support early in the development process. The approach was implemented using Python for the knowledge base and as a plugin for Siemens NX. It offers automated design checks, optimizations, and further information through an integrated Wiki. Evaluation confirms the feasibility and benefits of the approach.

In the field of individualized medical implants for bone replacesment, additive manufacturing offers far-reaching advantages for bridging bone defects and supporting the production of natural form and function. The article uses the example of a large, customized cranial implant to show the challenges of manufacturing with osteoinductive bone cements. The process is shown, starting with planning and design, through to functional integration using adapted manufacturing strategies to create defined porosity.

The growing use of additive manufacturing (AM) processes pushes research towards studying methods to reduce their environmental impact. The part build orientation is a significant process variable, which can be chosen through the Energy Performance Assessment (EPA), a straightforward method. The paper presents a method for identifying the best part build orientation considering energy consumption. The EPA has been adapted for this purpose, resulting in an approach based on four steps. The method was employed to determine the best printing direction for three parts and two AM technologies.

In this exploratory study, designers’ preferred learning media in learning to design for Additive Manufacturing was explored. Furthermore, by deploying an online survey questionnaire, factors such as years of experience, and the categories of products designed were explored to understand how they influence designers’ learning media with a response from 201 respondents. The results show that designers have learned how to design for AM through experimentation and present the first step towards developing an appropriate Design for Additive Manufacturing knowledge dissemination approach.

The accelerated rate of product development and design complexities offered by Additive Manufacturing (AM) has allowed for innovation in the space industry. However, the surface roughness of parts poses a challenge, as it impacts performance and is tied to design choices. Design tools for traditional manufacturing methods fall short in AM contexts, prompting the need for alternative design processes. This work proposes an experimental approach to design for AM investigation using design artefacts to explore a process-structure-property-performance relationship.

In Fused Filament Fabrication, there is increasing interest in the potential of composite filaments for producing complex and load-bearing components. Carbon fibre-filled polyamide currently has highest available strength and stiffness, but promising variants are not in filament form. This paper investigates filament production of commercially available, high-filled PA-CF pellets by modifying a tabletop filament extruder. We show filament production is possible by improving cooling. The FFF printed specimens show an average UTS of 135.5 MPa, higher than most commercially available filaments.