We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Webster Brehm about their original and creative Telemedicine Cart design work. Webster Brehm is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original telemedicine cart works.
Webster Brehm ("WB") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work CA750 Telemedicine Cart. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
WB : The primary business problem addressed by Avizia’s CA750 telemedicine cart is care delivery for those in need. Avizia’s technology connects physicians and specialists with their patients at the point of care – whether patients are in an urban community, rural town, nursing home or school. Avizia’s CA750 can be used across “service lines” including stroke, behavioral health, dermatology, wound care and chronic disease management, to name a few.
WB : Avizia’s CA750 was created to make telemedicine as easy as an in person care visit. The cart’s easy to use features ensure doctors and nurses can focus on the patient in front of them and providing the best care possible. By incorporating Avizia’s CA750 into hospitals, patients can have better outcomes and hospital staff can deliver specialty care to anyone who needs it.
WB : The CA750 is Avizia's flagship telemedicine cart, but with a Cisco video codec to enable seamless integration into Cisco powered video infrastructures. Avizia is expanding the CA750 product line with CA750-Vidyo, a telemedicine cart to natively fit within Vidyo’s networking infrastructure. Our customers with Vidyo infrastructure have repeatedly demanded a seamless telemedicine experience, a need Avizia will solve with the CA750-Vidyo. As Avizia has grown, we have come to understand that a customer’s choice of telemedicine solution is primarily influenced by its existing networking infrastructure. We continue to receive great feedback on our Cisco based telemedicine carts, and are committed to continue to innovate there.
WB : About 1 year.
WB : The CA750 was designed to replace a previous generation of telemedicine carts, the CA700. The success of the design of our 2014 telemedicine cart, the CA300, inspired Avizia to re-design the advanced cart.
WB : Avizia manufacturers and sells the CA750 to hospitals, physician groups and clinics to enable telehealth.
WB : Avizia’s CA750 was created to make telemedicine as easy as an in person care visit. The cart’s easy to use features ensure doctors and nurses can focus on the patient in front of them and providing the best care possible. By incorporating Avizia’s CA750 into hospitals, patients can have better outcomes and hospital staff can deliver specialty care to anyone who needs it.
WB : The design of our 2014 telemedicine cart, the CA300, was the inspiration for the CA750.
WB : Hospitals, physician groups and clinics seeking technology solutions to connect patient to remote physicians.
WB : Avizia carts overcome the downsides of alternative solutions by focusing on being easy to use and built with telemedicine in mind. By choosing carts from Avizia, hospitals are choosing technology that was made to make the jobs of nurses and doctors as easy as possible, ensuring the focus is on the patient, not the technology. When considering a telemedicine program, some hospitals choose to use legacy technology instead of turning to an outside vendor who specializes in telemedicine. These legacy solutions are built using carts they either already owned or are able to find at a reduced price. While this may save costs at the outset, there can be a number of downsides in legacy carts as they are not built with the same engineering sophistication and focus on user experience. This can significantly impact the ability of a physician to reach a patient at the right time, when every second is critical. Because the carts are made in house, they can have compatibility issues with other devices and integration problems which can cause video to cut in and out and can be lower quality so doctors are unable to connect or see the problem they are trying to fix. When hospitals choose to create their own carts, maintaining and supporting them can create a drain on in-house IT resources as more time and money is invested in fixing the problems that arise. The net result is often a negative Return on Investment. There are other competitive telemedicine carts in the market that address some of the problems above, but still do not offer an easy user experience. These carts tend to be more expensive to deploy and maintain, some are as much as three to five times more than Avizia’s offerings. Furthermore, the carts require significant amount of end user training, a draw on nurse’s and doctor’s time. Some competitors have closed platforms, meaning they can be difficult to integrate with existing networking infrastructure in the hospital e.g. Cisco, Polycom or Vidyo. These integration problems mean carts cannot reliably connect the patients to doctors over video, which in turn eliminates the benefits of having a telemedicine cart to start with. Some carts also have exposed components or wiring which are more easily damaged or can be snagged as the cart is being wheeled around, leading to downtime , and lower overall reliability.
WB : CA is the abbreviation for 'clinical assistant' and 750 was our half step up from 700. (The CA700 was the old model). This care is an evolution of the previous model.
WB : When developing the CA750, Avizia focused on creating a cart designed specifically for telemedicine. Avizia integrated the control panel, microphones and speakers into the cart so physicians and nurses only need to bring one thing in to a visit. A key component for many hospitals, the Avizia carts are affordable and are set up by Avizia professionals, making them easy to integrate into a larger telemedicine program.
WB : Over the course of the CA750’s development, Avizia had a team of 5-6 hardware engineers working on the cart. With decades of experience and a diverse background including expertise in video conferencing, FDA testing and electronics, Avizia’s engineers put their past experience to good use developing the CA750. On top of the in house team, Avizia partnered with organizations specializing in electronic design, assembly and testing to ensure the cart met the highest standards. When deciding on the features included in the cart, Avizia thought the best approach to making a cart meant for hospitals was to include hospitals in the creation process. Working with multiple hospitals, Avizia gathered feedback for eight months to ensure the cart fulfilled the needs of those who would be using it. These hospitals were included in every step of the process and were key to creating the final product. Avizia turned to nurses and physicians to ensure the cart had the tools they would need, without being difficult or time consuming to use. From button placement, to direction of the carts’ microphones, Avizia’s team was able to learn from physicians and nurses using the cart. By stepping outside of a lab and working on the product in its future environment, Avizia was able to build the CA750 with the features and tools those using it would need to provide excellent patient care.
WB : Technology has a primary role in this design. The external design houses a video codec, computer 'brain' and other parts of the total system.
WB : When deciding on the features included in the cart, Avizia thought the best approach to making a cart meant for hospitals was to include hospitals in the creation process. Working with multiple hospitals, Avizia gathered feedback for eight months to ensure the cart fulfilled the needs of those who would be using it. These hospitals were included in every step of the process and were key to creating the final product. Avizia turned to nurses and physicians to ensure the cart had the tools they would need, without being difficult or time consuming to use. From button placement, to direction of the carts’ microphones, Avizia’s team was able to learn from physicians and nurses using the cart. By stepping outside of a lab and working on the product in its future environment, Avizia was able to build the CA750 with the features and tools those using it would need to provide excellent patient care.
WB : A friend shared the competition with Avizia.
