DesignWise Medical

DesignWise Medical's mission is to provide Help for Children and Hope for Families. Please Join Us.

Our Story

DesignWise Medical (www.designwisemedical.org) is a nonprofit organization that is focused on developing medical device and product solutions to children’s unmet medical needs.

Children need devices that are safe, effective and sized appropriately for them. Technology already exists that could address many children’s unmet medical needs, improving outcomes and quality of life and ultimately reducing health care costs. However, these markets are small, making it difficult for traditional medical device companies to achieve an adequate ROI.

At DesignWise Medical (DWM), we are able to develop pediatric devices for approximately one-fifth (1/5) the cost of the traditional for-profit approach. Through the sustained involvement of pediatric clinicians, parents, sponsors, volunteer and students, we are able to identify, create and deliver collaborative solutions to an underserved population.

We also provide learning opportunities for our higher education student volunteers, helping them succeed in today’s competitive medical technology job market. To date we have sponsored 43 student projects at ten universities and have had more than 350 volunteers (~2/3rds students) donate more than 40,000 hours of their time working on our 13 active pediatric device projects.

DWM Projects:

• Overnight Pediatric Oxygen Delivery System (OPOD)
• Neonatal Closed-Loop Oxygen Management System
• SurTube Smart Feeding Tube System
• Passive Feeding Pump
• Peripheral Vein Locator
• PT Rover Mobility and Exercise Cart
• Newborn Hip Dysplasia Orthosis
• IV Line Manager for Contamination and Entanglement Control
• Healing Buddies Child-Life Educational Tools & Therapeutic Toys
• Healing Buddies Comfort Kit Mobile Application (launched in 2013)
• Self-Contained Nebulizer System
• Diabetes Management Tools for Children
• Simplified Urine Specimen Collector

Further information on these projects can be found @ www.designwisemedical.org.

Awards:

• Minnesota Cup Finalist
• Mosaic Social Entrepreneurs Cup Competition - Runner-Up
• Echoing Green Fellowship Semi-finalist
• New Technology Showcase Award Winner – LifeScience Alley
• 2012 Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium Competition Finalist
• 2012 Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium People's Choice Winner

Walk Across America?  In 24-Hours?  What is the significance of 3792?

Last year on Give to the Max Day 2013, Brad Slaker, founder of DWM, walked 100km to raise awareness and financial support for developing needed medical devices for children. This year he is going to do another 100km but wants everyone who walks or runs to join him that day on a virtual '24-Hour Walk Across America for Kids'.

This 1-day event on Give to the Max Day 2014 (Nov. 13, 2014) will demonstrate support for those children and their families that suffer 24-7-365 with illness or disease by collectively walking / running the equivalent of walking across America within a 24-hour period or a distance of 3792 kilometers (2356 miles).

"It is said that to really understand what someone is dealing with you need to ‘walk in their shoes’ for a while.  That is the purpose of this community virtual walk…to symbolically walk in their shoes. I want these children and families to know that there are people who care and that they are not alone.  We are all interconnected." said Brad Slaker.

For the 2014 GTMD, DWM Board of Directors will match all donations dollar for dollar up to $3792 (the distance across America).

Further details, including a FAQ section, update on Brad's 100km walk progress, and an updated overall progress chart on the 24-Hour Walk Across America for Kids can be found on the DWM website at http://www.designwisemedical.org/home/24-hour-walk-across-america-for-kids-2014/.