Renowned design and innovation firm, IDEO is hosting a design challenge at the 2012 IEEE Healthcare Innovation Conference, selecting eight teams of clinicians and engineers (including students) to advance ideas for new healthcare breakthroughs, while learning IDEO’s unique process for design innovation.
The 2012 IDEO – Health Innovation Conference Design Challenge is a daylong workshop where attendees have the opportunity to help advance one of eight pre-selected challenges. The Newborn Foundation’s project – to advance the development of a remote diagnostic imaging tool to support early detection of Congenital Heart Disease, the most prevalent and deadly birth defect – was selected from a highly competitive field of applicants to participate in the challenge.
IDEO’s Health & Wellness Team will facilitate the workshop for participants to see how to apply design principles in translating medical innovation from idea to prototype. All teams will have the opportunity to present their design process to the audience, including Venture Capitalists and Kickstarter seed funders. Additionally, four teams will be asked to submit a paper on their experience at the design workshop for the new IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.
Contact: Jim Bialick at 858-353-3581 
(jim@newborncoalition.org)
Who: The Newborn Foundation
What: IDEO Design Challenge at the IEEE Healthcare Innovation Conference
“Real-time, interoperable, remote diagnostic imaging tool to support early detection of most prevalent birth defect in newborns”
Where: The Methodist Hospital Research Institute in the Texas Medical Center,6670 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX 77030
Why: The challenge: Develop a low-cost, easy-access, clinically appropriate and interoperable diagnostic tools that support early detection, diagnosis and intervention for critical congenital heart disease in newborns and infants, reversing the trend of geographic disparity and poor outcomes for affected babies.
About the Newborn Foundation
The Newborn Coalition (www.newborncoalition.org), a 501(c)(4), and Newborn Foundation (www.newborn-foundation.org) a 501(c)(3), are the only national non-profit organizations exclusively focused on leveraging health IT, medtech and biotechnology innovation to improve outcomes and reduce disparities for the newest, most vulnerable citizens. Co-founded by the mother of a baby diagnosed at 48 hours old with congenital heart disease, the Coalition and Foundation work domestically and internationally to improve newborn health and reduce risk factors while helping encourage access to quality care and resources through vital technologies, research and pilot projects.