bme-idea meeting 2013

BME IDEA Conference Planning Committee:

Andrew DiMeo, University of North Carolina
Christine Kurihara, Stanford University
Amy Lerner, University of Rochester
Jack Linehan, Northwestern University
Barry Meyers, Duke University
Chris Neils, University of Washington
Maria Oden, Rice University
Phil Weilerstein, NCIIA
Youseph Yazdi, Johns Hopkins
Paul Yock, Stanford University

KEYNOTE ABSTRACT

The times they are a-changin’. The panel will discuss future challenges and opportunities for medtech innovation and attendant implications for training students to be successful in their careers.

Moderator: John Linehan
Panelists: David Auth, Art Rosenthal, and Paul Yock.

WORKSHOP ABSTRACT

With the explosion of interest in online education, it’s a great time to evaluate the web resources in our area of BME innovation/design/entrepreneurship—and brainstorm about our needs for more resources going forward.

This initiative will start with a survey distributed to all BME-IDEA meeting participants—the results of which will be presented at the start of the workshop. From there we will gather in tables of 10-15 to evaluate resources in different BME-IDEA domains: what and where the resources are, how useful and what is missing. By the end we will have an overview of the landscape of online resources – and will have collected initial group of great resources for us all to share. The collection will be added to our BME-IDEA website for use by the community.

Christine Kurihara, Stanford University
Amy Lerner, University of Rochester
Joseph Tranquillo, Bucknell University
Phil Weilerstein, NCIIA
Paul Yock, Stanford University

UN-PANEL ABSTRACTS

Current issues in teaching Capstone Design

Experiential learning is essential to Capstone Design and provides high-value experiences for biomedical engineering students. The current increasing popularity of the BME/BE major is both “good” and “bad” news.  As enrollments increase, we have challenges in scaling the capstone design experience to remain high value. This “unpanel” will identify critical issues and methods to address them.

Unmoderators:
Jack Linehan, Northwestern University  (moderator)
Vin Pizziconi, Arizona State
Robert Hitchcock, University of Utah

Is it Time to Teach Healthcare Economics to BME Students?

The landscape for biomedical technology innovation has changed radically in the last few years with health care reform putting a major emphasis on cost containment.    Moving forward, the process of identifying important needs for technology innovation will have as much to do with understanding the impact on cost as on predicting the possible clinical outcomes.   BME students are generally not sufficiently schooled in health economics to have a solid understanding of the cost implications of the technologies they develop.   This unpanel will explore whether there is a real need to inject more economics training into the BME curriculum — and, if so, how this training might be designed.

Unmoderators:
Paul Yock, Stanford University
Jan Pietzsch, Stanford University
Mary Kay O’Neill (invited), Regence Blue Shield

Creating successful student project experiences

As our programs have grown, many of us have collected “museums of dusty prototypes”, while we have learned about the many faces of success in student projects.  Some projects proceed to commercial ventures, while others result in spectacular failure-based learning experiences. Can both be considered “success”?  Is a project that goes no further than capstone design a failure? Is there a level of technical complexity that is required for it to be an appropriate engineering experience? This unpanel will discuss strategies for success within the many constraints of our programs.  If it is the job of the instructor to identify projects that will guarantee success, what works?  Is it possible or appropriate to “Fail Fast, Fail Early & Fail Often” within the context of a Senior Design experience?  Would hiring managers prefer students who are successful or who know how to learn from failure?

Unmoderators:
Amy Lerner, University of Rochester
Maria Oden, Rice University

Global Health Innovation: The Challenges of Designing Practical Solutions for Low-Resource Settings

Unmoderators:
Youseph Yazdi, Johns Hopkins University
Anurag Mairal, PATH
Maria Oden, Rice University

SNAPSHOT ABSTRACTS

Soumyadipta Archaya, Johns Hopkins University
Global Clinical Immersion for Engineering Students: Perspectives from the Hopkins-CBID experience

As an integral part of the global health innovation program, graduate students at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) spend several weeks in August of every year in clinical immersion in several countries in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia) and Asia (India, Nepal).  Students spend time across the spectrum of healthcare facilities in these countries- from some of the best hospitals in the government and private sector in big urban areas, to primary health centers, sub- health posts, and community health programs in remote rural communities. We  also  invite other participants to join the immersion teams- such as students from local engineering and design schools, and engineers and designers from our corporate partners such as Laerdal Global Health and Medtronic. The focus of these trips have evolved over the last four years, from one focussed primarily on needs identification, to one that focusses on needs assessment in priority areas. This year, we have included select undergraduate students enrolled in BME capstone design courses on these teams as well. This presentation will focus on the logic and rationale behind facilitating these clinical immersions, the challenges related to funding and managing the in-country experience, and some of the key learnings that have led to ongoing changes in the structure of these immersions.

Ken Barbee, Drexel University
Translational Design Clinical Immersion Co-op: Leveraging Regional Healthcare Institutions

We have developed a Translational Design Clinical Immersion Co-op that is part of an innovative new Junior Design / Senior Design program in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Sciences and Health Systems at Drexel University.  This program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, gives students, during their junior year, the opportunity to spend their co-op cycle working alongside clinicians and biomedical engineers to identify unmet clinical needs and translate novel technologies from bench to bedside. We have leveraged existing collaborations, often Coulter Project teams, and initiated new relationships to provide access to clinical settings in Philadelphia and throughout the region.  Besides our own medical school, we have placed student at Thomas Jefferson University, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Shriner’s Hospital, Magee Rehab Hospital, and Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

David Camarillo, Stanford University
A unified approach to addressing medical problems: cellular and device engineering solutions

Abstract: We teach a unified systems engineering approach to meeting medical needs which applies equally to cellular and device engineering.  Our undergraduate teams come up with solutions ranging from fat-metabolizing probiotics for addressing obesity, to iPhone-based sensors and machine learning algorithms to improve colon cleansing for colonoscopies.

Elias Caro, Coulter Foundation
Coulter College: Translating Research to Practical Application

Over the past decade the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation has pioneered an effective new model for translational research in biomedical engineering.  More recently the Foundation has turned its attention to education and training in translation, including a program called Coulter College.  This talk will outline the vision and describe the initial implementation of these activities.

Zeynep Erim, NIH/NIBIB
NIBIB’s DEBUT (Design By Biomedical Undergraduate Teams) Challenge

The presentation will focus on the goals and outcomes of NIBIB’s DEBUT (Design By Biomedical Undergraduate Teams) Challenge.

Jay Goldberg, Marquette University
BME/Industrial Design Collaboration in BME Design

BME and industrial design students from Marquette University and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design have been collaborating on capstone design projects for the last eight years.  The benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from this collaboration will be presented.

Juergen Hahn, Renssleaer Polytechnic Institute
Global Engineering Teams – An International Design Experience

Global Engineering Teams is an international interdisciplinary educational experience for engineering students. Undergraduate and graduate students from four continents form teams and work together to solve open-ended fundamental (humanitarian) engineering problems. Currently, the GET experience is being evaluated as an alternative to the traditional capstone experience.Global Engineering Teams – An International Design Experience

Balakrishna Haridas, University of Cincinnati
Experiences in Interdisciplinary & MultiUniversity Collaborations:  Medical Device Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Cincinnati

We will be sharing our experiences with building interdisciplinary and multi-university student team based collaborations in medical device innovation at the University of Cincinnati.  The goal of this is to stimulate a broader discussion around such initiatives and compare our learnings with other institutions w.r.t action learning based innovation programs in medical devices.

Francis Kalush, FDA
The FDA’s CDRH  Medical Device Curriculum

This presentation will review the CDRH Medical Device Curriculum. The curriculum uses case studies, in the format of the Harvard Business Review, to convey concepts and discussion points on understanding regulatory paths and requirements for the development of medical devices for instructors and students. The results of two pilot case studies and plans for the future of the program will be reviewed.

Michelle Khine, University of California, Irvine
The BioENGINE Master’s Program at UC Irvine

The BioENGINE (BioEngineering, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship) Master’s Program at UC Irvine will provide rigorous and practical hands-on team-based training in biomedical innovation, entrepreneurship / intrapreneurship and commercialization. BioENGINE will train students through experiential learning to become experts in developing biomedical devices and technologies.

Maria Oden, Rice University
Rice 360: International Internships for Undergraduate Students:  Working and learning in the field.

This snapshot will present the international internship portion of the  global health technologies minor at Rice University. Key goals of the program, student successes  as well as lessons learned will be shared.

Arthur Ritter, Stevens Institute of Technology
A Pilot Multi-Disciplinary Senior Capstone Design Course

For the past 2 years, one section (about 18 students) of the Biomedical Engineering Capstone design course has had multidisciplinary engineering teams from BME, EE, CompE, ME and CivE. The design topics were BME oriented but vetted to require a multi-disciplinary approach. Each team (of 3 – 5 undergraduate students) had appropriate academic and clinical advisors. The multidisciplinary section was organized and directed by a BME faculty member with over 15 years in the Biotech field and was successful to the point that additional resources are being committed to expand the program.

Mark Ruegsegger, Ohio State University
Developing an international capstone and mentorship program.

Opportunities abound in the global, engineering education arena.  In China, many top universities are expanding and creating engineering colleges and departments, and they are open to international collaboration at many levels.  Interaction at the undergraduate level is fairly new, and creating an international capstone team has many hurdles, including distance and time changes, communication, class logistics, and project distribution.  I will describe our current situation in developing a process for this program.

Stuart Tobet, Colorado State University
The Triangle Offense: Partnering for innovation

The School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) at Colorado State University (CSU) leverages regional strengths along 3 dimensions. First, our School leverages expertise across 4 colleges of CSU and more than a dozen departments. We are not only a unit in the college of engineering, but also in full partnership with the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, and College of Health and Human Sciences. Second, our program engages local medical professionals (e.g., Medical Center of the Rockies and Orthopedic Center of the Rockies) in addition to the regional University of Colorado Medical School in Denver. Finally, we partner with, and leverage, regional industry expertise on one side for internship positions for CSU students (e.g., Medtronic Navigation, Terumo BCT, Covidien, Allosource) – and on the other side to provide regulatory affairs expertise (e.g., Reglera) in an educational program that helps train people to work in local industry. At each point of contact, the watchwords are communication and collaboration. These are particularly apparent when academia, medicine and industry draw points of the triangle together to forge new or strengthen existing collaborations to make advances in biomedical frontiers.

Joseph Tranquillo, Bucknell University
Leveraging Regional Strengths at Bucknell University Biomedical Engineering Department

The Bucknell Biomedical Engineering Department began a partnership with the Geisinger Medical Center eight years ago in support of our senior capstone experience. In this snapshot, we will share how this partnership evolved from a grassroots effort to an official partnership featured as one of Bucknell six campaign initiatives, a joint IP agreement, shared staff, and collaborative research centers.

Martin Vesterby, University of Aarhus
A Biodesign-inspired program at the University of Aarhus, Denmark

Martin Vesterby from INNO-X Healthcare, University of Aarhus, will describe some of the experiences from the first Danish BioDesign inspired course. The use of personality analysis and profiling of the Fellows. The early “lockdown” on effects and endpoints. The use of models for health economic evaluation and the Business Model Canvas as tools for concept selection.

Conor Walsh, Harvard University
Medical Device Innovation in Low Resource Settings

I will discuss a program whereby Harvard students are afforded the opportunity to travel to India to interact with local stakeholders with the goal of developing affordable medical technologies. In summer 2012, with a grant from the Harvard South Asia Institute, a multidisciplinary team of students (engineering, medical and business) spent the summer at the Narayana Hrudayalaya hospitals in Bangalore. The students identified the need for a low-cost medical device to assist with cataract surgery and I supported them over the following year to design and fabricate a prototype. In 2013 we continued the program where 5 Harvard students were paired with 4 students from the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bangalore where they were co-mentored by a faculty member from IISC. My goal is to continue to grow this program and deepen collaboration between faculty and medical centers in India so that we can have frequent student exchanges and joint design projects.

Phil Weilerstein, NCIIA
Biomedical Engineering Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award competitions

Created by the BME-IDEA faculty alliance and run by NCIIA the BMEIdea and BMEstart competitions recognize outstanding graduate and undergraduate design innovations through an annual competition opportunity that engages the majority of BME departments in the US each year. Program requirements, guidelines and outcomes will be described.

Online Resource Spreadsheet