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Galleries // 2012 Spark:Product // Firefly Phototherapy

Firefly Phototherapy

Winner - Platinum

Competition: Spark:Product
Designer: Mr. William Harris - Designer
Design Type: WORLD-CHANGING
Website: http://www.designthatmatters.org

Design that Matters, William Harris IDSA, Elizabeth Johansen, Timothy Prestero, Lincoln Design Solutions, Dave Duncanson, Oakley Thomas, Boston Design Solutions, Mike Damiano and Joe Galibois Jaundice caused by hyperbilirubinemia affects sixty percent of all newborns worldwide, and a higher percentage in Asia. Of these jaundiced newborns, an estimated ten percent will develop permanent, long-term disabilities and even brain damage without treatment. Phototherapy is the only cost-effective treatment for this condition. Firefly phototherapy is the first device that Vietnamese clinicians trust to use in the room with mothers in rural hospitals--a context that supports an optimal cycle of newborn phototherapy and feeding for rapid and effective treatment. The combination top and bottom phototherapy, robust enclosed housings, table-top size, removable and cleanable single-infant bassinet, and high-tech medical aesthetic make it the most trustworthy, intuitive and effective phototherapy device affordable for low-resource, remote settings in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Most primary care facilities in poor countries have no tools to treat even simple jaundice because they are too expensive to buy and maintain, too cheap and shabby to trust, or are quickly broken after donation from wealthy countries. It can take up to three days for an infant born with jaundice to travel from a rural area in Vietnam to a facility with phototherapy. Meanwhile the infant’s condition worsens beyond the hope of treatment. Rural district hospitals in Vietnam and Southeast Asia receive little training and are understaffed. Newborn treatment and maternal recovery often take place in separate rooms, located at distant ends of the hospital, sometimes separated by stairs. District-level hospitals providing primary care in Southeast Asia that wish to reduce referrals and improve treatment outcomes, need a less expensive, locally-serviceable tool that can be placed in the mother’s room to provide individual phototherapy to otherwise healthy newborns while allowing infant warming. TRUST: Inexpensive without looking cheap, Firefly provides above-and-below phototherapy at a fixed distance from the infant, eliminating the possibility that users will install the lights incorrectly, and ensuring that the newborn receives effective phototherapy regardless of their orientation. The intense bottom lights allow the patient to receive effective phototherapy when covered by a blanket (whether in cooler weather or by a worried mother). Using both lights provides the fastest, most effective treatment on the market. CONNECTION: Firefly is sufficiently compact and robust for clinicians to feel comfortable installing the device in the mother’s recovery room. Entire nights of jaundice therapy are lost as hospitals have insufficient staff to shuttle the infant between phototherapy in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and feeding in the mother’s recovery room. This new context promotes mother-child bonding, regular feeding and close maternal supervision. SAFETY: Infection is a leading cause of infant mortality. Firefly’s one-piece, removable, vacuum-formed bassinet is designed to be easily disinfected by hand, providing superior infection control to rural hospital bedding. Furthermore, conventional overhead phototherapy devices effectively encourage rural hospitals to place two or three infants in one bed for simultaneous treatment. Firefly’s bassinet will only hold a single infant, reducing the risk of cross-infection. COST: We have designed Firefly to match the production capabilities of existing Vietnamese medical manufacturers. The price is a fraction of traditional U.S. overhead LED phototherapy allowing for implementation through an existing supply chain that has already established NICUs for and provides ongoing training and service to 140 hospitals serving 20,000 patients per year in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and East Timor, soon expanding to India and the Philippines. Firefly phototherapy is currently distributed through our partner foundation who provides donations of medical training and equipment to motivated newborn health departments across Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and East Timor, soon expanding to India and the Philippines. Future distribution will also include direct sales to hospitals and governments through our partner Vietnamese manufacturer. USER FEEDBACK: “Laying next to Firefly, my eyes feel fine. Using Firefly instead of the overhead phototherapy, I don’t have to worry where my baby is and I can lay comfortably and take care of him.” Do Thi Lu, Mother, Hai Duong, Vietnam. “Before Firefly, we actually had to take this baby out of our other phototherapy unit so she could be breastfed by mom. Wow! Now we can do both!” Dr. Jazel Manarang, Philippines General Hospital. “ I prefer Firefly over the other devices, as the light looks much stronger, which will treat my baby better.” - Nguyen Thu Tuyet, Mother, Da Nang Hospital for Women & Children “I like Firefly because I can lay next next to my baby, and always be with him. Before I wasnt able to be with my baby, and worried if he was ok.” - Nguyen Thu Tuyet, Mother, Da Nang Hospital for Women & Children “Treatment with mom is better. It allows mom to be with her baby, and let the nurses deal with more severe cases.” - Dr. Truong Thi Nhu Huyen, Da Nang Hospital for Women & Children “Mother care is better than nurse’s care because there are not enough nurses to cover all the infant care needs. The nurses can teach the mother how to check simple vital signs such as whether they are crying, if they are feeding and sleeping well, and if they seem to hot or too cold.” Dr. Pham An Quang, Hai Duong, Vietnam. “We feel Firefly is easier to use than overhead phototherapy because we can put a blanket on top of the baby and still provide effective phototherapy from the bottom. Overhead phototherapy could be set at the wrong distance form the infant bed and it’s more cumbersome to use.” Dr. Tran Van Thuan, Hai Duong, Vietnam. “I am most impressed with how fast the bilirubin level is reduced. Firefly was empty when this baby first needed phototherapy, but I put him under the overhead because I wanted to save Firefly for the most severe cases. We ended up moving the baby to Firefly when his levels spiked to 405. If we hadn’t had Firefly, we would have had to do a blood transfusion for him.” - Nurse Dan Thi Quynh, St Paul Hospital