I proudly present Samantha Katz as Exhibit A: the graduate student from Northwestern University who (along with project partner Erik Schickli) won l
ast year’s DiabetesMine Design Challenge Grand Prize, and was subsequently hired by Medtronic Diabetes to help design their next-generation insulin pumps. (See yesterday’s big Medtronic announcement.) Samantha is living proof that “crowdsourcing” exercises like this contest can shake Pharma’s big tree.
This year, Samantha is one of our expert judges for the 2010 contest. Here’s what she has to share about it all:
DBMine) What got you interested in designing for diabetes?
SK) I am naturally drawn to fixing things; for example, products that do not work as intended or services that are misaligned with the recipient’s needs. This led me to pursue a degree in design concurrent with my MBA. However, the turning point for narrowing in on diabetes came when my teammate in the 2009 Design Challenge told me about the challenges his mother faced daily as a Type 1. I knew nothing about diabetes until that point, but I immediately thought that there has to be a better way. It has been a rewarding experience ever since.
Can you tell us about the experience of winning the Grand Prize last year?
I was completely surprised to have won among so many impressive submissions, and it was wonderful to receive validation from diabetes and design experts that my idea had legs.
On a personal note, winning the competition gave me confidence that my desire to make a career in developing products to improve the lives of those with diabetes was justified. For the first week or two I felt like a mini-celebrity, since several design and medtech blogs had picked up the story, as well as one of my school’s publications. I also had the chance to spend a few hours with medical device design experts at IDEO, where I received valuable feedback on the design and shared ideas for improving upon it even further.
How much time did you spend creating the LifeCase/LifeApp prototype, and what were your expectations going into the 
contest?
We heard about the contest late in the game, so we only had a month to develop the concept, perform user research, and create the prototype. It was a very tight timeline, but we felt strongly about our idea and thought the contest would be an opportunity to both hone our design skills and have some fun.
You’ve been hired by Medtronic Diabetes now, to work on development of new pump systems. What are your top priorities in evolving insulin pumps for the better?
As we are developing future product platforms, ensuring a safe experience is always our top priority. Additionally, we are focusing on improved technology that leads to both improved clinical outcomes and a more convenient patient experience.
Clinical research has shown that combining the components of insulin delivery, continuous glucose monitoring, and therapy adjustment allows patients to tighten glucose control and achieve an optimal clinical outcome; so we will continue to focus on these elements. Our goal is to develop products that fit more seamlessly into a patient’s life, by giving users a product that is simpler to use, adaptable to their specific needs, and more comfortable.
Do you have any tips for contest entrants this year?
Research, research, research! I’m always amazed by how different people experience ideas and products differently. A design that makes perfect sense to you may be challenging for someone else to use, and a product that meets your needs may not have the same benefit for another. The initial concept for LifeCase/LifeApp was certainly our own, but refining the design and features through several rounds of research where we spoke to and observed people with diabetes gave us insights that we could not have come up with on our own.
And of course — have fun! This is a great opportunity to not only design, but also potentially improve lives in the process.
Thank you, Samantha. We’re glad to have you, both on the panel AND in the industry.
Hi Samantha!
Thanks for sharing your experience; I just got my Minimed CGM (full story here: http://bit.ly/bl1L5Q ), and I am very interested to hear more about what Minimed is developing in terms of hardware and software improvements for the current system– if you’re willing to answer a few questions, can you email me? karmel –at– asweetlife –dot– org
Thanks!
Karmel
Hey Samantha
Will anything ever become of your LifeCase/LifeApp idea? It won because it was something that would truly help people. I totally want/need one! Are you or Erik pursuing the idea at all? Is there any hope we will see something like that in the future?
The Medtronic Paradigm Reveal looks like a tiny incremental improvement, which is what we have all gotten used to. When will we something revolutionary like the LifeCase to help diabetics? You have to have 2 probes stuck to your body, a meter, a pump AND THEN something else to log data? REALLY? Not everyone wears cargo pants all the time! Where’s the all-in-one?
Please tell me the LifeCase isn’t dead!
The lifecase idea had a few clever ideas, especially hiding test strips inside the lancing device, but basically it was heavily reliant upon a very unlikely combination of technology: a blood monitor paired with an iphone/smartphone. A close integration between J&J or Medtronic and Apple is unlikely to make financial sense, and the hardware changes too often for the medical companies to even remotely keep up. The overlap between diabetics and iphone owners is another factor that limits the commercial viability. Sure, you could expand to all smartphones rather than just the iphone, but then the hardware/software coordination issues quickly spiral into the impossible range. Med devices could easily overcome many issues by adopting open data standards and utilizing common technology (like bluetooth), but so far I haven’t seen any move in the direction at all. Possibly because allowing 3rd party developers access to their data removes control over how the data is displayed and interpreted… The FDA certainly can’t allow that for safety reasons. It’s still basically impossible to pull useful data out of even the most advanced blood monitors without using proprietary / closed software, which is just going to keep innovation slow to support safety. People who do design for modern devices don’t have to deal with all of the regulation imposed by the FDA (for good reason), which is why we see so much innovation in smartphone apps and online. Its just not the same ballgame when you’re playing with data that actually matters. Hopefully we’ll at least see steady progress, but its going to be decades rather than years to catch up with where we are now.
Hello,
Hopefully this means that we will have a smart phone / BG tester on the market soon.
Also are Canadians allowed to take part in this contest?
thanks
Brian Riviere
@Brian – don’t know about your first question, but the answer to No. 2 is yes, certainly!
[...] view their submissions, too. This is what your market is looking for. And take note: Samantha Katz, last year’s Grand Prize winner, was actually hired by Medtronic Diabetes to help design [...]
So Samantha, when might we expect to see a Medtronic Insulin pump that can withstand a few minutes the shower? I have had to return 5 pumps in the last three years because the buttons got wet. I have had Walkman music players which lasted much longer.. This is really lame for a $3600 medical device.