Mechanical & Industrial Engrg 381 - Inclusive Design in Healthcare

Specifically, the course will focus on innovation to address social determinants of health challenges in healthcare. For example, during COVID telemedicine has seen a tremendous growth and application in healthcare. However, the question to explore is can we design more inclusive telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, or other remote/digital health technologies. For more specific examples, can blood pressure cuffs be put on if the patient has only one arm, or how can a person in a wheelchair weigh themselves on a Bluetooth scale? Are there issues for people of color etc. that either limit their ability to use or adopt some products (e.g., light-based sensors for pulse oximetry, pulse, and heart rate through the skin) or actually hurt their care because it reinforces racism like in the case of facial recognition and other AI decision support algorithms have been found to be biased and not as accessible to underrepresented populations?

Open to juniors and seniors in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering and Commonwealth Honors College. Students in the other College of Engineering majors, the College of Nursing, or the iCons program who are interested in taking the course may email the instructor requesting permission to join if seats are still available.

This course satisfies the IE Elective or Free Elective for Industrial Engineers and the MIE Elective for Mechanical Engineers. It does not satisfy a technical elective for either major.