Insight Wins MDEA with St. Jude Medical
April 6, 2009 – Insight Product Development won its fifth Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA), this year as a supplier to St. Jude Medical for work on the company's Merlin.net™ Patient Care Network (PCN).
Merlin.net PCN is a secure, Internet-based remote care system for patients with implanted medical devices which can gather and store patient device data transmitted via the Merlin@home™ transmitter from the comfort of patients' homes. The Internet portal and real-time alert management extends the reach of healthcare professionals from the clinic to the home, which can help to increase patient safety and convenience and may hold the promise for future healthcare cost containment. Issues that could once have only been detected through in-clinic visits might now be found and responded to much earlier.
The system processes data uploaded from a patient's home via the transmitter, sends alerts to the appropriate physician and can seamlessly transmit data to an Electronic Health Record.
Insight began work on this project by conducting user research about the needs of the patients who wished to transmit data from their implanted devices and the clinicians who receive the data. The research findings guided the direction of the program and the industrial design work on the Merlin@home transmitter.
The MDEA is the only awards program that exclusively recognizes contributions or advances in the design of medical products. Entries are evaluated on the basis of their design and engineering features and the ability of the product development team to overcome design and engineering challenges so that the product meets its clinical objectives. A review of the entries was performed by a panel of third-party jurors with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine and diagnostics.
“Insight was a valuable partner in the research and development of the Merlin.net PCN technology and the Merlin@home transmitter, and we are happy to share this MDEA award with them,” said George Walls, senior manager, St. Jude Medical, of working with Insight.
“We have worked with St. Jude Medical for more than seven years, and to win an award with them is special because of our longstanding relationship,” said Craig Scherer, senior partner, Insight. “This system is a perfect example of the innovative design and technology in medical products that are necessary for home-use, which is a growing trend in the healthcare industry.”
Read more about the MDEA
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