Dan Haugen » Medical Devices http://www.danhaugen.com Freelance Journalist ::: Energy : Sustainability : Technology ::: Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:28:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= “Human-centric” design in health care http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/04/20/human-centric-design-in-health-care/ http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/04/20/human-centric-design-in-health-care/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:49:51 +0000 Dan http://www.danhaugen.com/?p=510 Anyone who's ever had to navigate a confusing hospital complex or request health records from a provider has probably reached this conclusion at some point: our health care system wasn't designed for patients. And generally, they're right. Health care design has tended to revolve around the concerns of physicians, insurers, and attorneys, but arguably the most important stakeholders, patients, have largely been left out of the process. That's contributed to a deficit of consumer-friendly design in healthcare, from stressful buildings to impractical technology. "Patients have been treated as the recipients of care instead of the consumers of care," says Kai Worrell, president of Worrell, an industrial design firm in Northeast Minneapolis, which specializes in health care. The good news: that's starting to change. There's a growing awareness among insiders that health care lags behind other industries when it comes to providing a high-quality customer experience. And with patients starting to play a more active role in where their health care dollars go, there's an effort underway to make some consumer-centric changes. Around the Twin Cities, a new wave of creative design, from architecture to technology, is aiming to improve the patient experience in healthcare.

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]]> http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/04/20/human-centric-design-in-health-care/feed/ 0 An obesity medical device lost its Gruve. Can it get it back? http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/02/02/an-obesity-medical-device-lost-its-gruve-can-it-get-it-back/ http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/02/02/an-obesity-medical-device-lost-its-gruve-can-it-get-it-back/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:43:04 +0000 Dan http://www.danhaugen.com/?p=463 Muve was Minnesota’s “breakthrough business idea” of 2007. The obesity-fighting fitness device concept was the unanimous winner of that year’s Minnesota Cup contest, earning it prize money and piles of positive press. Not only that, the startup had a big-name partner behind it in the Mayo Clinic. The small, wearable clip tracks how many calories users burn and vibrates when they’ve been inactive for too long. The concept was inspired by co-founder Dr. James Levine’s research at Mayo, which suggested people could lose or maintain weight by breaking up their day with periodic, light activity. “We had a lot of momentum,” founding CEO John Montague recalled this week, three months after debtors shut down the company and claimed its assets. “I get asked every day: what happened? Why did it fail? How could that have possibly failed, when it had the Mayo Clinic involved and it was focused on obesity and it had every possible macro-economic trend working in its favor? “The answer to that question is probably a little bit complicated.” That’s an understatement, and the story took its latest twist this winter when seven Muve investors used the assets they repossessed from Muve to launch a new, strikingly similar company called Gruve. The move gives the Minnesota technology a second chance to make a splash in the market, but it’s also left vendors and other investors feeling burned and believing they’re still owed a piece.

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]]> http://www.danhaugen.com/2011/02/02/an-obesity-medical-device-lost-its-gruve-can-it-get-it-back/feed/ 0 06.18.10 notes, links http://www.danhaugen.com/2010/06/18/06-18-10-notes-links/ http://www.danhaugen.com/2010/06/18/06-18-10-notes-links/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:34:10 +0000 Dan http://www.danhaugen.com/?p=256 Way too much on my plate this morning, so I need to keep this brief. I’ll be unpacking my thoughts/notes today on last night’s Policy & A Pint on “Cities, Bicycling and the Future of Getting Around.” I’m also going to be talking/playing phone tag with a few more entrepreneurs I want to feature in next week’s issue of The Line.

I’m going to get straight into the links now:

SUSTAINABILITY
The Seward Co-op celebrated its new 32-kilowatt rooftop solar photovoltaic system with a “commissioning party” on Thursday. The array was installed by Solarflow Energy, a Seward neighborhood company that is trying to prove a solar leasing model. I wrote about ‘em this week for The Line.

MEDICAL DEVICES
ProUroCare , an Eden Prairie medical device startup, announced an extra infusion of cash from its existing investors. The company makes an imaging product that it believes can help doctors diagnose and document prostrate cancers. Thomas Lee wrote late last year that the company may have a hard time convincing reimbursers that the product is necessary. I was humming the Yeah Yeah Yeahs after reading this story in the Star Tribune this morning: an airline worker in Arkansas came across a container of human heads and head parts on their way to Medtronic that were apparently not packed or labeled properly. The state confiscated the body parts until it can confirm they were obtained legally.

ECONOMY
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development announced May job numbers on Thursday. Minnesota employers created a net 5,600 jobs during the month while unemployment fell to an even 7 percent from 7.1 percent in April. It was the second consecutive month of job gains — a first since Jan.-Feb. 2008. U.S. Census hiring is responsible for a large chunk of the increase, but private employers in the state still created 2,600 jobs. Construction and financial services were the only sectors that didn’t see growth. I spoke with an official from an IT staffing agency in the Twin Cities, who told me that it’s placing a lot more web and app developers than it was a year ago, although much of the activity is temporary contract work.

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