Medical Make is an interactive iOS tablet app that demystifies healthcare devices and teaches people how to use different tools from medical science and makerspaces.
We built an app to interact with iBeacons that identify different prototyping tools with instructions for how to use them. The tags open an encyclopedic library with recipes to build things like smart inhalers, tracking pill bottles, and other ingenious medical devices.
The medical maker labs are equipped with CNC machines, vacuum formers, and other strange contraptions. Through the app people can learn a little bit about how to use different tools and techniques.
These medical maker labs are now deployed in 7 hospitals and continue training nurses, medical professionals, patients, and regular people who want to take charge of their own health and care.
Key parts in a Medical Maker Kit are encased in special enclosures that have iBeacons associated with them. When the enclosure is placed upon the iPad running the Medical Make app, the app identifies the part and displays information about the part: its name, its purpose, and projects that can be built with it.
Tapping on a project name navigates to the project description and instructions, so that the nurse using the app can begin building the project right away. This allows medical professionals to begin exploring the world of making and inspires them to create new solutions to improve (and maybe even save) the lives of their patients.
A medical Maker Space is basically a room or other area containing the necessary tools for building health care solutions of your own design. This interactive diagram in the Medical Make app allows the user to tap on the various tools in the Maker Space and see a photo and description of the tool. This enables nurses to learn about these devices and understand how they can be used in creating new tools and products to help medical staff get their job done easier or to improve the lives of their patients through customized solutions.
The Medical Make app also contains articles and other content that inspires medical staff to create new solutions to existing medical problems, and to make them aware of the maker movement and its benefits. By seeing how others have solved problems through making, they can understand how to design and build their own solutions to their own unique challenges.