Design Aid program that makes finger pricking for Diabetes a thing of the distant

We proudly announce that Deakin University will receive our Design Aid program’s first recipient, the non-invasive smart solution to blood glucose monitoring.

Our mission is to provide underfunded digital health projects with access to world-class design through the Design Aid program.

The winning project will design and implement a smartphone-based, non-invasive glucose monitoring system using terahertz technology. This project was developed through years of collaboration between Australia and the United States. It is now entering the Visualisation and Prototyping phases. We are well-suited for this phase because of our experience in user experience design in the health sector.

Professor Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Deakin University and Epworth HealthCare commented on their win. “We have been working together for many years on the technical side to this exciting project and we know that a great user interface is crucial for the successful adoption of our solution.” Navy Design’s generous support will enable us to make a significant difference in the lives of millions suffering from Diabetes.

The following are other finalists:

• Health Delivered – A dietary management platform that addresses the growing obesity, Diabetes, and other chronic health problems.
• Flinders University is developing a platform to bring together infectious disease research.
• Wollongong hospital – James Brinton developed an innovative idea involving a Pokemon Go game to allow patients to record their opinions on hospital service levels. They hope to link this to their work on the My Surgery Journey app soon be released.

It’s been amazing to witness the variety of innovative ideas that have been presented to improve the services and outcomes for patients in the healthcare sector. The applications came from entrepreneurs, academics and healthcare professionals around the globe. They included projects that addressed health issues such as Diabetes and obesity, and mental health.

The Navy is fortunate to work on many projects that use user experience design to make a difference in the lives of people in need. Design Aid was created to allow less-financial projects to draw on our extensive experience in this field.

Design Aid is an annual program that we offer twice a year. It allows us to invest our time in giving underfunded digital health projects world-class design. This is a 2-week intensive design program where our design team assists in taking a product to the next stage.

We recruited three Navy Design Directors and a panel of three independent health experts: Dr Linny Phuong, who works at Royal Children’s Hospital; Chris Gray (Managing Director, Telstra Health – ADCC) and Brendon Wickham, an eHealth specialist currently working in a government-funded organisation.