The problem started as many do, with a gap in the marketplace. To distribute medications to patients, hospitals typically choose between expensive robotic carts or basic plastic tubs on wheels that anyone could purchase at a home improvement store.
VCU Health hospitals use the latter, but the carts require workarounds to secure controlled substances and protect patients’ privacy. Two years ago, VCU’s hospital pharmacy staff saw an opportunity to improve the cart, but didn’t have the time to dedicate to research and development and, ultimately, design. They worked with a vendor who tried to adapt an existing product, but the end result failed when put to the test.
“Something like this really needs to be designed from the ground up,” said Shanaka Wijesinghe, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Sciences in the School of Pharmacy.
That’s why, when Wijesinghe walked into pharmacy operations manager Michelle Harrison’s office last summer, searching for a project to bring to VCU’s da Vinci Center, Harrison was all ears.
Wijesinghe has been involved with the da Vinci Center — a collaboration of VCU’s schools of the Arts and Business, and colleges of Engineering and Humanities and Sciences that advances student innovation — for years as a mentor, and had been looking for more opportunities to leverage the in-house creative resource to address challenges on the MCV Campus.
“In a sense, we are like Google,” Wijesinghe said. “For every challenge, we also have the ability to generate the solution. It’s just a matter of bridging the campuses and getting people talking to each other.”
Feature originally appeared on the Virginia Commonwealth University home page.