Trial insights tested on humans
You will make mistakes. Testing your product will make it better. The health- and care sector is happy to help you get it right. These were just three take-home-messages from a recent Brew Your Own event “Tested on Humans” about product testing aimed at start-ups, students and researchers. Copenhagen Science City and Biopeople planned the event together with the day’s hosts at the House of Practice and Innovation, University College Copenhagen.
Advanced test facility
House of Practice and Innovation is an advanced test-facility for health-and care sector products and services. The hosts kicked the event off with a tour of their simulation environments. This includes a physiological test lab with pressure sensitive floors, a hospital ward with robot patients, settings simulating senior citizens homes, a physical rehabilitation ward and almost any other setting one is likely to find anywhere in the health and care-sector.
Students as guinea pigs
The House of Practice and Innovation offers idea development, business development and product testing for products as well as services. A unique aspect of their service is that they can enrol students from relevant health and care-programmes such as nursing and midwifery to carry out the testing. After the tour of the facility the two start-ups OSAA Innovation and VR-Multiview shared personal experiences from the process of product testing at the House of Practice and Innovation.
Invaluable insights into workflow of users
OSAA Innovation has developed a portable alternative to the drip-stand or IV pole known and loathed by anyone who has ever been in hospital for anything even remotely serious. According to CEO Ahmed Hessam his co-creators had several ideas about how their product, the IV-GO, should be designed, but got even more during the trial period.
Through a number of tests at House of Practice and Innovation we gained invaluable insight into the workflow of health professionals and the interaction of nurses and patients. This experience improved the product”: Ahmed Hessam, CEO, OSAA Innovation
Business built on testing
VR-Multiview have produced a virtual reality service for therapists to use with dementia patients. Their product was born out of sessions at the House of Practice and Innovation. Working with a new and immature technology, they have been through several processes of re-thinking their product. The current version could almost be described as memory therapy as-a-service.
Regulatory approval
It is notoriously challenging to win approval for products for the health and care sector. Jesper Prior of the Contract Research Organisation TSF gave a fly-over of the regulatory landscape , including new EU regulations for medical devices. His main take home message was, that it is vital to figure out which set of regulations your product needs to comply with before you spend too much money developing it.
Finding healthcare personnel for testing
One way to figure out which set of regulations you need to follow, is to figure out exactly which product you are trying to create. This may sound banal, but it really is not. Charlotte Kira Kimby represents one of the largest Danish medicine and med-tech procurers, the Capital Region of Denmark (Region Hovedstaden).
Kimby leads VihTek – Videncenter for Velfærdsteknologi, which assists companies in finding the right personnel groups to test any product for her sector. In her time, she has seen medicinal projects transform into medico tech and then further on to med-tech as-a-service as various groups of users have given their feedback on issues such as usability, safety or price.
Next event March 3rd.
Copenhagen Science City, Biopeople and House of Practice and Innovation would like to thank all the speakers. Next Brew Your Own will be about the value of diversity on start-up teams and will be hosted by start-up community COBIS. March 3. 15.00- 17.30 Stay updated about future events here…
