MedicPouch - Personal Medical Administration Kit

Brief

The design brief for this project “Designing for Disaster” was to find solutions to improve the lives of people who were affected by disasters. The chosen disaster for my project was on severe floods and the event that I selected to explore was on the 2008 Bihar Floods.

Problem Situation

One of the major problems that I discovered in my research was that the poor health care administration system in flood relief camps. Flood victims especially those in rural India, do not have any medical documents and record of themselves with them or in the government medical database. Thus, this would create problems for the medical staffs attending to them, prolonging the overall consultation time and reducing the efficiency of the medical response. If this problem was to be multiplied by the thousands of patients seeking medical attention, it would cause a significant delay in medical service and it may cause people who are in critical condition to die. This is supported by a blog post of a first hand report on the situation in Bihar flood relief camps by Randeep, where he asserted that “the bottleneck in health care administration” is one of the major problems facing in flood relief camps. He also described about the “paper-handling” situation seen in flood relief camps and asserted that “the Medicine center many times gave no bills and even if they did, there was neither a date nor name. Every time, the doctor at the hospital used to write a prescription on a 2"x2" torn piece of paper and they were asked to purchase the medicines from a private chemist.” Thus, it also leads to a rise of insensitivity and illegal medical practices from the medical staffs.

Solution

‘MedicPouch’ is a personal medical administration kit aimed to solve poor health care administration problems faced in flood relief camps like those in the 2008 Bahir Floods. It contains a personal medical record booklet, health educational materials and storage space for medicines and its owner’s personal items. It is designed to ensure proper and accurate recordings of a patient's consultation, its diagnosis, treatment and medications given, which can be quickly reference back for subsequent visits to the doctor. 'MedicPouch' is aimed at reducing the overall waiting time for patient consultation and increase efficiency for medical response. Shorter waiting time means more patients consultation and more lives save. It also helps to reduce patients' anxiety and increases the doctor's confidence in giving the right treatments. It is also to promote a more ethical, personal and proactive approach to the overall healthcare system. With proper and legal documentations of medical services given to the patients, doctors will be discouraged from committing illegal medical practice. Moreover, by possessing individual's personal medical records will also inform and engage them about their own medical health.

Design

'MedicPouch' has a four-fold seal cover that provides a water-proof and secure enclosure for its contents. Basically, the user will have to join the internal Velcro straps together, close the pouch, fold down the top lips of the pouch four times and join the front and rear Velcro straps together. Ample space are designed at the lips and the front folded flap of the pouch for easy opening and closing of the pouch. The pouch design is made from a simple rectangular cut and layered with its flap, allowing for minimum material wastage. The structure of the design allows it to be flat and slim where its sides are folded inside like a paper lunch bag that allows it to be flat-packed and light for a more efficient and greener transportation. The shoulder strap are also made to be adjustable by altering to the intended length with the Velcro strap on it. The extra loop at the sides of the pouch also allows more than one bag to be attached onto a single shoulder strap. Thus, It will allow mothers to carry their children pouches with them. The design also allows the user to be emotionally attached to the product, as the user depends on it to keep its personal medical records, medications and personal items. Thus, this will help minimizes product waste.

Material and Technology used

It is made from recycled tarpaulins from old billboards, clear polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Velcro straps and nylon straps .The main manufacturing process used would be machine sewing for connecting the various parts of the pouch together. The manufacture of the personal medical record booklet will consists of printing and bookbinding. Companies could get involved in this product by donating their used billboards and banners, instead of paying for its waste disposal cost, while simultaneously doing their part of disaster aid relief. Recycled tarpaulin also serves as a basis to differentiate and customize each pouch for a unique look for easy identification. It is chosen also for its strong, durable, flexible and waterproof features that will help the product last longer. Recycled tarpaulin is chosen because of it opaqueness that blocks sunlight from reaching the medication stored in the pouch. Clear PVC was chosen for the window of the pouch to allow the user to identify their pouches by the cover of their personal medical record booklet through the window of the pouch. The covers of the booklet also comes in four different colors to further customize each pouch to its user. Velcro strap was chosen instead of the plastic buckets, was because of its light weight, flatness and durability, which is essential for the design.

Overall, the materials chosen were to simplify the total amount and variety of material and processes for easier dis-assembly and recyclability at the end of the product's life. Even though it is design for dis-assembly, the product's design and material choices are aimed for a 5 – 10 years life span or longer. The manufacturing process was also simplify to avoid unnecessary transportation of parts for assembly and aimed to concentrate production at a single location.

Conclusion

'MedicPouch' will help improve the lives of flood victims in receiving healthcare services in their flood relief camps by providing a more systematic and efficient process of handling healthcare administration that will help reduce patients' anxiety from waiting, increase medical staffs' confidence and productivity levels in providing quality medical services and avoid destroying unnecessary lives due to poor healthcare administration system and save lives. 'MedicPouch' will also allow individuals to be aware and in control of their own personal medical health and value the importance of keeping a personal medical record.

Notes

Randeep's first hand report on Bihar's Flood Relief Camps' situation

Source : http://biharflood2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/kosi-calamity-ravaged-districts-of.html

Here are my posters of my design.

Cheers.