Today’s sophisticated medical devices are miracles of modern medicine, extending and saving the lives of millions of people every day.
Whether it is an anesthesia machine in a hospital, a chemotherapy infusion pump, a CPAP device worn for sleep apnea, or a home COVID-19 test that can give you results in 15 minutes, people marvel at what medical technology can do.
But Michael Lau (BSc ’02, Kinesiology, Ergonomics Option) thinks about an aspect of medical device technology that typically gets less popular attention – the ergonomics of the user interface.
He is the human factors leader at the Insight Innovation Center, a consultancy company in Chicago that is a subsidiary of Nemera, a French-based supplier of medical devices in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector.
“Other companies hire us to design and develop medical products,” he says. “These could be things like injection and other drug-delivery devices, diagnostic devices, surgical tools, or any medical equipment used in hospitals or homes.”
Human factors
His team of engineers gathers inputs through research, analysis, usability testing and prototyping to help inform designs and to validate that products meet the needs they were designed for in the hands of their users. That’s where “human factors,” also known as ergonomics, come into play.
Whether it is something small like an insulin injection pen used by individuals, or a sophisticated piece of robotic equipment in a surgery bay, it has to be safe and easy to use, Lau says. “Humans come in all different shapes and sizes, with varying levels of capability, and with very diverse ways of thinking. How do you design something that makes sense for everyone?
“We work with designers and human factors engineers to figure out how to design products so that they can be used in a safe and effective manner. We want to make sure that when these devices are in the hands of lay users or in the hands of nurses or doctors, they can use them properly without hurting themselves or their patients by doing something incorrectly, out of sequence, or not doing it at all.”
The field of human factors wasn’t something Lau was specifically thinking about when he arrived from Toronto to study Kinesiology at Waterloo. He initially wanted to be a physiotherapist. “I was looking for a program that would lead to a health-care type of a profession,” he says.
Prevent, not treat
But while studying kinesiology, he discovered ergonomics. He realized that instead of treating injuries after they happen, he could help prevent injuries in the first place. His undergraduate advisor, Jim Frank, encouraged him to go on to graduate school, which led to his master’s and PhD in Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan Center for Ergonomics.
Although most people tend to think of ergonomics in terms of setting up office workstations or redesigning manual work to prevent repetitive strain injuries, there are many exciting applications in the medical device industry, Lau says.
“There is a vast landscape of medical devices to work on. Think about any device that you might use at home or from the pharmacy for health-care reasons, or that’s used in hospitals. Figuring out what people need and how to embody it is at the crux of good medical device design. The regulated nature of the industry also means that manufacturers are required to do extensive usability testing prior to approval.”
At-home wearables
An exciting transition in medicine involves the greater use of at-home wearable devices. Internet-connected sensors, digital devices and the miniaturization of medical equipment give people the ability to have treatments or monitor physiological signs while going about their regular day.
But these devices, such as wearable on-body infusion pumps, have a lot of strange human factors details that have been considered, Lau says. These include where you have to put it on the body, whether the person’s skin can support the weight of the device and how to design it so that people can wear it on their bodies for perhaps days at a time. “Think about all the activities you might do in a day. How do you design a wearable that allows a person to sit, sleep, exercise, bathe, eat, work, play, or care for small children without falling off?”
Lau says he hopes the University of Waterloo will encourage young people to pursue this field. “There are not enough good human factors engineers out there right now and the demand is high,” he says. “Students with a solid grasp of how humans perceive, think, move and act, who understand product development process rooted in user-centered design, who can work and communicate with anybody – be it a senior citizen, a child, a neurosurgeon, marketing professional, or engineer – and have an eye for design and detail are in high demand.”
The work is extremely satisfying because it has a huge impact on improving health-care outcomes, Lau adds. Good design in medical equipment and devices means better treatment outcomes and less pain and suffering for patients.
