Cloud detection process to improve the efficiency of medical care for the sick: Congratulations! Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology won the Red
Dot Design Award with its "I-Care."

The special project group of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, directed by Prof. Kun Ouyang of the Department of Innovation Product Design and Prof. Yi-Chen Du of Electrical Engineering Department, won the Red Dot Design Award with their work "I-Care." They stood out of the 4,698 entries from 60 countries participating in the competition in Germany.

【Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology won the Red Dot Design Award with its "I-Care."】

The work "I-Care" offers comprehensive medical care to the sick and helps caregivers take care of their patients in a more efficient way. It manages information about patient treatment through the cloud, providing nursing care priority order with a combination of product touch control circuit, weight sensing, screen display, infrared scanning, RFID devices, and many other technologies. It can detect the remaining amount from the weight sensing and employ a flow rate calculation processing to allow patients to know the end of the drip time. The patient does not even have to remind nurses to replace the drip; the system will automatically send a message to remind nurses to do the replacement. Its RFID device also allows nurses and doctors access to related data via its synchronization system, thereby reducing the chance of the wrong bit while helping patients get out of bed at night by the touch drip rack shaft that blinks with light to help patients distinguish the level of the gap between the bed and the floor. After detecting the information via the cloud process of sending messages to the system to provide paramedics, nurses can work to reduce their burden and pressure.

【Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology won the Red Dot Design Award with its "I-Care."】

Prof. Kun Ouyang of the Department of Innovative Product Design pointed out that that the team explored the relationship between doctors and patients through user research and understood the needs of patients and caregivers through interviews and observations. In their interdisciplinary cooperation with Prof. Du of Electrical Engineering Department, their design ideas were turned into actual products before they finally produced their product “I-Care,” which also gave shape to the prototype concept of IoT ward. This feature product came into form through their interdisciplinary cooperation: the two parties exchanged their views in a back-and-forth discussion on product development, from which the mutual understanding grow between the different views and with which the team achieved maximum efficiency in product development through communication. Winning the 2016 Red Dot Design Award was a major affirmation for both the teachers and students. For them, however, the biggest gain was the study of communication and interdisciplinary cooperation as well as coordination and mutual respect in the process of implementation.

Prof. Yi-Chun Du of Electrical Engineering Department said that "design" is the technology commercialization of DNA, and a correct design can allow the product to come closer to the people and become more practical. In the development of medical devices, risks of misuse are always involved; therefore introducing human factors design is now the essential core. Red Dot Design Award was founded by the famous German Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen. This competition is one of the largest and most prestigious design awards in the world. The winners will be invited to participate in the awarding ceremony and exhibition to be held in Singapore on September 22.