This Innovation Corps (I-Corps)project addresses issues related to configuring manual wheelchairs.
Manual wheelchairs (WC) provide effective, low-cost mobility while preserving upper body strength, cardiovascular conditioning, independence and participation in the community. Currently, manual WC prescription and fitting are iterative processes and are highly dependent on the expertise of the clinician. Poor outcomes negatively impact the health and wellbeing of the patient as well as significantly increase costs. Clinicians need to prescribe and personalize the configuration of an individual's manual wheelchair so that the fit facilitates function, especially for individuals with spinal cord injury. Functional needs include maintenance of posture, control of balance, distribution of pressure, and mitigation of detrimental loading of the individual's shoulders. This project's System for Personalizing and Evaluating the Fit of Assistive Devices in a Clinical Setting (SPEC) integrates low-cost emerging technology, extensive clinical expertise, and rehabilitation research to inform and personalize the WC prescription and fitting process. Successful integration of the SPEC system into the clinical work-flow is expected to shift clinical practice toward more personalized manual WC fitting while minimizing iterations and costs associated with WC prescription, configuration, and unintended secondary consequences.
This I-Corps team's interviews to date indicate that clinicians need a quick and reliable process that will reduce the trial and error associated with prescribing and personalizing the configuration of manual WCs. As part of the I-Corps Team project, the team aims to investigate three potential customer segments from the injury rehabilitation and manual WC ecosystem which could benefit from the SPEC system. Potential customer segments include clinicians involved in seating, manual wheelchair manufacturers and their suppliers and distributors, and insurance companies who might be the actual payers for utilization of the SPEC system. Revenue structures and product channels may be unique to each of these customer segments. Expected outcomes of this project include further delineation of customer segment value propositions and revenue streams associated with the integration of the SPEC system into the clinical workflow. Broader impact includes translation of research-based guidelines into practice for different customer segments, personalization of therapeutic interventions, and dissemination of expert knowledge into community based practices.
