In 2014, I (with RISD Research) organized a workshop with MASS Design Group to generate concepts to redesign the personal protective equipment (PPE) worn by healthcare workers treating the Ebola virus, as well as improve communication to affected communities and offer resources those families and individuals.
Dr. Noah Rosenberg, an emergency physician from Brown/Rhode Island Hospital, who is trained for Ebola protection, diagnosis, and treatment shared his insight; offering also a valuable demonstration of the lengthy and hyper-cautious process of dawning and dofting medical gear to avoid contact with any fluids carrying the virus.
With our ten cross-disciplinary groups of students from Harvard, MIT, Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design, professors from those institutions and health care professionals, we generated a series of design recommendations for improving equipment and processes for onsite Ebola treatment. Several projects were selected for further development and are viewable on the Open IDEO platform.