Health & Design: Medical product design

The complex situation caused by Covid 19 has made it even more evident how the medical sector constitutes one of the areas in which Industrial Design can offer important responses. The continuous search for performance and safety, for both operators and patients, give design a central and wide-ranging role.

Ergonomics and ease of use are primary keywords and objectives in the design of medical products. It is essential to offer doctors and nurses the best conditions in which to carry out their task, in order to improve performance by reducing errors that, in the medical field, may be fatal.

Equally important is the intuitiveness and simplicity of the instrumentation and medical furnishings to assist operators in daily tasks. The study of interfaces and medical instrumentation and furniture control systems can provide valuable help with a task that is as much repetitive as delicate.

Another equally important aspect is the continuous search for technologies capable of allowing constant improvement in performance. The growth of automation and artificial intelligence will offer technologies to simplify and make many surgical operations safer. Innovation in the search for materials and increasingly sustainable solutions (think of washable and sanitizable protection systems) are crucial to the work of designers. Designers also have the task of adapting creativity to the complex regulations in force.

The medical sector is one of the largest globally, and has a value of $ 7.8 trillion, which is equal to about 10% of world GDP.

This market is expected to grow with forecasts of around 3.2% being driven by the developing economies, where health spending increases at a higher rate than GDP on average. It is realistic to think of higher growth estimates, initially expected to decrease compared to previous years (growth in 2018 was 5.2%), due to the health emergency caused by the spread of Covid-19, combined with the contraction of GDP.

The relationship with the public sector, which often represents the main customer, defines the market as Business-2-Government (B2G). This aspect is expected to diminish somewhat following the increase in home treatments which will make patients also become clients.

The trend in the future - accelerated by the Covid-19 event - will be one of greater ability and willingness to receive care at one's home. It has been noted in fact that during the pandemic hospitals and the first reception facilities were the ones with the greatest number of contagion cases. The future could bring a new healthcare system that avoids hospitalization whenever possible.

Hospital systems and products will enter homes. Design will play an increasingly important role in the development of many limb rehabilitation devices, as well as others, to make them suitable for use in one's own home.

Last but not least is the issue of the increasing number of elderly people in many areas of the world. It is necessary to think about how to keep them in their homes for as long as possible. Inclusive design will play a decisive role in helping them live independently while being constantly monitored by healthcare facilities and their relatives. Design develops technologically advanced products that are increasingly designed to meet the needs of patients and doctors.

If digitization becomes one of the highest-impact phenomena and increasingly moves care into the home, especially for a series of chronic diseases and for the elderly, healthcare will see a radical change in the coming years. Design will have to imagine new scenarios in which to create different products and services for the future of health and well-being, in the spirit of ever greater humanization.