Helping accelerate medtech product innovation - Clearscope
Business challenge
Growth & Scaling
Product Innovation
Sector
SME
Technology or capability
Product Design
Additive Manufacturing
Industrial Transformation
Project Challenges
Clearscope was founded after they discovered that many healthcare professionals don’t clean their stethoscopes between patients. This heightens the risk of cross contamination of healthcare-associated infections between patients.
Through their extensive research, Clearscope discovered the main reasons healthcare professionals do not clean their stethoscope are lack of time, lack of access and the personal desire to not use single use disposable wipes due to the environmental impact.
In response to the growing need for sustainable and effective medical equipment sterilisation Clearscope’s solution is to create a medical device which can sanitise a stethoscope without the need to use single use plastics. The device is portable and uses ultraviolet-C (UV-C) technology to fully sterilise the surface of a medical professional’s stethoscope that touches the patient.
Having developed an early concept of the solution, Clearscope approached the West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA), a regional programme part of the locally led Innovation Accelerators, delivered in partnership with DSIT, Innovate UK and the West Midlands Combined Authority to evolve the design from an early prototype stage to an industrially relevant demonstration. MTC’s skills and expertise were identified as the most suitable within the WMHTIA consortium to address Clearscope’s challenges.
MTC's Solution
MTC started by assessing the progression of Clearscope in MTC’s New Product Introduction (NPI) framework and identifying a suitable support step that would accelerate the business in the short term.
The Clearscope team then joined MTC for a Design Discovery Workshop in which the MTC team applied their proven methodology to support businesses – leading activities focusing on product innovation & development. This helped the MTC team to explore Clearscope’s business aims and objectives, understand Clearscope’s values & goals and define how MTC could support Clearscope and progress them in their journey towards manufacture.
Following MTC’s proved product innovation approach and the design thinking methodology, the MTC team looked to discover and define the user needs by carrying out user research with local medical professionals. Extensive material research was vital at this early stage to ensure that the device would align with all requirements. With the guidelines set, MTC looked at various concept routes for the form and functionality of the device. Six concepts were CAD modelled, rendered, and 3D printed as low-fidelity prototypes by MTC to demonstrate aesthetics and functionality. Clearscope then led user trials to help validate which concept to take forwards. This informed an evolution of the design to consider healthcare professionals’ day-to-day roles with features such as silicon casing and a magnetic clip function to offer extra security when kept in the user’s pocket.
With a single, user-centric design down selected, MTC then followed a concept refinement process to take the design from concept to reality. The team used their knowledge in design for X to design the device with manufacturing methods in mind and adding innovative ways for the device to be as user-friendly and self-intuitive as possible.
MTC pulled the expertise from different departments to discover critical problems with the printed circuit board design, such as severe overheating and issues when charging. Further work was also identified to cover relevant testing and quality control for manufacturing.
Working with Federico and Alessandro has been a great experience. Developing user centric products is my passion and working through the design process with founders who set this out in their product and business goals has made this truly enjoyable to work on.
Simon Wilson, Technical Lead, Product Design Group – MTC
The Outcome
The NPI assessment and Design Discovery Workshop created a snapshot and a product development roadmap to help guide Clearscope in further developments.
The bespoke support work package MTC delivered working with Clearscope generated a set of concepts designs of the housing of their portable stethoscope sanitiser device. This includes a more developed concept design is suitable for 3D printing at a prototype level, enabling Clearscope to produce a set of these for user trials.
Benefits to the Client
This project has de-risked Clearscope’s innovation by helping define a product development roadmap based on MTC’s expertise. It has also accelerated Clearscope’s product development and progression towards securing further funding by plugging expertise gaps and coming up with solutions both for the electronics and casing of their product.
Alongside the concept generation, high-quality visual renders were created for the chosen concept, which Clearscope can use to demonstrate the product aesthetics to potential investors. Additionally, the materials research detailed a list of suitable materials for the medical application, saving Clearscope time when continuing their development.
Analysis of the existing PCB highlighted some key risks for Clearscope to address, along with suggestions of next steps for this based on MTC’s electronics and readiness for mass manufacture expertise.
The West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator programme has enabled our team to provide an impactful bespoke support package for Clearscope. Their openness and disposition to utilise our expertise enabled our engineers to become part of the team and work collaboratively in an accelerated manner. We are looking forward to help Clearscope progress further in the introduction of their great innovation in the market.
Miguel Fernandez-Vicente – WMHTIA programme technical lead – MTC