Spark Health Design is a collaborative, international team that uses human-centered design and usability engineering to develop world-class technologies that lead to better health outcomes globally. Our focus is medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health tools that are more accessible for all.
Our Services
human-centered design
interface design
concept development
usability / human factors engineering
design research
user experience design
industrial design
program management
human-centered design workshops
Call for Information: What oxygen technology, business, or service innovations do you know about? >>>
Click the button to learn more about this collaboration between Unitaid and Spark Health Design and provide information about oxygen innovations.
Launched May 24, 2023. Collecting information through June 30, 2023.
About Us
We convene and lead global teams who are right for each collaboration. Local capacity building in human-centered design is a core part of our approach. Our collaborators include:
Elizabeth Johansen, Founder & Principal Consultant
As a product design strategist, human factors engineer, and program lead, Elizabeth has contributed to seven products launched including healthcare apps, rapid diagnostic tests, drug delivery, consumer health packaging, and newborn medical devices. Notable products include Eli Lilly’s Kwikpen insulin injector (when working at IDEO); Jana Care’s improved Aina A1c point-of-care rapid diagnostic test app and kit for diabetes; and Design that Matters’ Firefly phototherapy device currently treating newborns with jaundice in hospitals in over thirty under-resourced countries. Firefly has earned ten design awards including the Edison Gold, IDSA IDEA Silver, and Green Good Design. As adjunct faculty with Olin and Babson College’s Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship course, Elizabeth is currently advising a student team working on early detection of hearing loss for better life outcomes with Solar Ear. Elizabeth is also a sought after speaker and facilitator who has taught design for social impact to hundreds of organizations, from small social enterprises to the largest bank in the world.
Spotlight
Spark Health Design, in collaboration with the Oxygen for Life Initiative, the Center for Public Health and Development, Loring Human Factors, UNICEF, and the Oxygen CoLab, have developed an evidence-based guide to designing oxygen concentrators, humidifier bottles, and flow splitters to address the oxygen gap in healthcare settings in low and middle-income countries.
There is an opportunity for manufacturers to design fit-for-purpose oxygen concentrators to address mortality due to the oxygen gap in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Oxygen concentrators were originally designed for use in the home setting. Though concentrators have already provided benefit in LMICs, the intended uses, users, and use environments are different. This leads to a cycle where nurses are ill-equipped to troubleshoot simple errors, regular maintenance is not performed, and technicians are unable to identify, source, and repair devices for want of simple parts and tools. These barriers to use cost lives.
“At the emergency department where I work, we use concentrators nearly every minute of the day [..]. One day there was no piped oxygen, so we had to order oxygen, but there was no cylinder oxygen available. In addition, the concentrators were not working. That night there was no oxygen at the emergency ward. The three patients who needed oxygen unfortunately died.”
