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Vscan Access is a portable ultrasound device that enables midwives detect complications and assess pregnancy risks early, providing antenatal care to mothers and enhance pregnancy management in primary and low resource settings.
Product Design
Healthcare
Design and innovation from an early stage to the user testing prototype.
Personal tool for midwife, quick learnability of a new tool by a midwife, in-field testing of close to reality concepts, high portability, acceptance of a new concept by fitting into the existing clinical workflows
Ultrasound machines have typically been in the realm of diagnostic services, with expert sonographers using high featured machines, providing detailed reports for action by obstetricians. But in countries like Indonesia and Africa, delivery by midwives and in their home clinics is the prevalent norm.
GE Healthcare wished to develop a portable, optimally specced product that could be a personal tool for the midwife, to tackle challenges in childbirth, enhance pregnancy management and provide continuity of care through data in low resource and remote settings such as these.
The main challenge was be able to come up with a solution that has very low barriers to adoption from midwives, who were new and novice users of ultrasound technology.
A co-creation approach was adopted for the development of Vscan Access. Using different product solution mockups, inputs were taken from midwives, obstetricians, government officials, and human factors specialists, to ensure that final solution was easy for the midwives to learn quickly and to conduct basic screening effectively.
Vscan Access helps them detect complications early and make referrals when required, track fetal growth, estimate gestational age and plan deliveries and share data with referral sites or patients. It is based on a tablet computer and supports a convex probe for abdominal scanning. It has an intuitive touch screen based user interface with streamlined workflows, presets, and local language capability.
Built-in real time coaching helps new users scan accurately and the ability to play e-learning videos helps with patient education. The device delivers good image quality, ability to store and transfer images via Bluetooth, as well as track fetal growth and estimate gestational age. The device has been designed to withstand power surges/spikes, can be operated on a battery and also supports solar chargers. Its small size and reasonable weight makes it possible to carry the device easily.
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