Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SCAUT (Ser-Col; from finger to laboratory; personalized and automated serum collection for laboratory diagnostics)
Teaser
IntroductionBlood collection via a hollow needle in a arm can be a real challenge for young, elderly, chronic ill and obese people. Patients need to go to a so called phlebotomy unit to have their blood withdrawn. After collection blood is stable for 4 hours prior to analysis...
Summary
Introduction
Blood collection via a hollow needle in a arm can be a real challenge for young, elderly, chronic ill and obese people. Patients need to go to a so called phlebotomy unit to have their blood withdrawn. After collection blood is stable for 4 hours prior to analysis. Once arrived in the lab, blood needs to be centrifuged to separate the blood cells from the bloodserum. With Ser-Col it is possible to collect blood via a fingerstick. The Ser-Col device consists of a special kind of lateral flow (LF) paper that separates the blood cells from the bloodserum within 30 seconds. After collection the LF paper dries which stabilizes the serum for up to months. Ser-Col can be send by regular postal services to the lab despite the transportation time and temperature.
Challenge
At this moment the serum part of the LF paper is processed manually to obtain liquid serum. This is a time consuming process and therefore not suitable for large scale introduction. Worldwide introduction of Ser-Col requires a fully automated Ser-Col processing. Ser-Col needs to be redesigned to guarantee patient friendliness (do it yourself), to have it automatedly processed and to introduce circularity to the concept.
Importance
With Ser-Col it is possible for a patient to collect blood in their home environment at any time.
Overall objectives
In the first 6 months of the SCAUT project the main focus was the redesign of Ser-Col with the following criteria:
1. patient friendly to use and as good as “monkey-proofâ€
2. automated laboratory processing
3. circularity
The newly designed and innovative Ser-Col full fills these criteria.
Work performed
The designing process has gone through the following fases:
1. design strategy
The following point for attention were addressed:
• product architecture
• user environment & configuration
• core meanings tool
• core requirements
• look & feel direction tool
• design & innovation approach
2. Innovation design
Main focus in this fase was research for the best possibilities for automated processing and proof of principle by building a rough model for testing.
3. concept design
In this fase the next steps were run through:
• Ideation
• building mockups
• choose direction
• concept modellating
4. circularity
The most important directions for circularity were:
• reusable parts
Most of the parts used within the new Ser-Col device (see also figure 3) can either be reused or being shredded and reused within the process of plastic moulding. This is still part of investigation.
• biological degradable material
In close consultation with Orange Plastics a study will start towards the use of biological degradable plastics and plastic moulding. This process dependents on the type of mould that will be used for the production of the Ser-Col device.
5. prototyping
In this important fase of the design both the criteria for patient friendliness, automated processing and circularity comes together.
5.1 Designing the new Ser-Col device
Finally a concept is chosen in which the user has to open the Ser-Col by sliding the LF paper containing part out of the outer housing. Blood from a fingerstick can be transferred to the Ser-Col device by scraping off the finger. The indicator level “MAX FILL†indicates when the correct amount of blood is collected. After closing the Ser-Col it is ready for transport to the laboratory by regular postal services.
Final results
After 6 months of the start of the project there is a raw version of an online lab requestmodule that enables a patient to request blood tests after using the Ser-Col. The module is called PostYourLab and can be found via www.postyourlab.nl.
Website & more info
More info: http://www.scaut.info.