Future Hospitals: Robotics and Automated Patient Care Engineering
Copyright 2007 Kelly E. Barnes, U.S. Navy, Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_070731-N-4238B-007_Lt._Megan_Zeller,_an_intensive_care_unit_nurse,_checks_the_vital_signs_of_patient,_while_he_recovers_after_surgery_aboard_the_hospital_ship_USNS_Comfort_(T-AH_20).jpg
Students further their understanding of the engineering design process while combining mechanical engineering and bioengineering to create an automated medical device. During the activity, students are given a fictional client statement and are required to follow the steps of the design process to create medical devices that help reduce the workload for hospital workers and increase the quality of patient care.
The engineering design process (EDP) is a widely accepted way of arriving at an optimized solution to an identified problem. This activity guides students through the EDP as they apply basic engineering concepts to design automated medical devices. Medical devices are health care products used to diagnose, care for, treat or prevent medical conditions. Examples of medical devices include pacemakers, heart monitors, dialysis machines and physical therapy devices. This project's real-world problem is to design an automated medical device for the hospital of the future. By combining mechanical engineering and bioengineering, students design and construct classroom prototypes of their medical devices.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Utilize the engineering design process to develop a solution to a given problem.
- Explain the reasons for their selected design.
- Summarize the problem, solution and future recommendations in an oral presentation.