Medical Cart AR

Problem

Clinicians often don’t have the opportunity to drill and rapidly familiarize themselves with critical medical carts. That’s because hospitals typically lock them to ensure the accuracy of equipment, medication and supplies for emergent cases. This issue was highlighted as a patient safety risk in 2017 from The Joint Commission. In addition, there are many types of medical carts caregivers are expected to learn – all with different contents and configurations.

Opportunity

Develop a low-cost, scalable solution that enables clinicians to familiarize themselves with medical carts.

Solution

With initial input from clinicians and faculty at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Medical Visualization (MedVis), part of OSF Innovation, developed Medical Cart AR, a customizable, augmented reality-based app that projects and simulates any type of medical cart from a mobile device. This gives learners the ability to explore their own hospital-based carts and advance their knowledge. After showcasing the app at a national conference and gaining interest from other hospital systems, MedVis realized the commercial potential of its tool and sought help from OSF Innovation Studio to scale the product.

Impact

Nearly 3000 learners have downloaded and are using the app. OSF Innovation Studio has helped MedVis attract three external clients. And the Studio has facilitated an agreement with a venture studio to license Medical Cart AR and bring the platform to market.

Learn more about how OSF Innovation Studio partnered with Medical Visualization to spin out Medical Cart AR below.

Commercializing an OSF Innovation-made app

For years, clinician educators have used real or simulated medical carts for training purposes. However, real hospital carts are typically sealed for use in emergency situations. If they are opened, the carts have to be double checked, re-stocked and put back into commission, which can be time-consuming and costly. Simulated carts may not be stocked appropriately for realistic training.

With initial input from clinicians and faculty at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Medical Visualization (MedVis), an OSF Innovation team, sought to address this issue by developing Medical Cart AR, a customizable, augmented reality-based app that replicates and projects any type of medical cart in open space from a mobile device. Learners can use the app to explore a cart’s contents whenever they want and acquaint themselves with the location of equipment and tools through timed challenges.

“I presented a prototype of the app at a national conference in 2020 to gain feedback about its practicality and immediately gained interest from others in the simulation space,” said Kyle Formella, director of MedVis. “With no national standard for medical cart setup, these life-saving tools vary from organization to organization. That makes it difficult for clinicians to recall their contents, which is why ongoing training is so important.”

Realizing the viability of the product, MedVis began further development of the platform in late 2020 and engaged OSF Innovation Studio to help scale the product.

Bringing Medical Cart AR to market

OSF Innovation Studio was created in 2021 to rapidly advance Mission Partners’ ideas and internally developed products from exploration to implementation or commercialization within and outside the Ministry. MedVis tapped the Studio to help bring the platform to market.

“Medical Cart AR was attractive to us for a number of reasons,” said Brent Cross, director, Transformational Innovation & Commercialization, OSF Innovation Studio. “MedVis built the app in a way where anyone can use it without support from a technology expert. It’s also rare for a concept to gain so much attention from potential customers in its prototype phase.”

The Studio initially helped MedVis develop a pricing structure, business model, end user license agreements, a privacy policy and contract with University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Clinical Simulation, the first hospital system interested in using the app. Soon after, Children’s Health in Dallas and Stanford University became clients, and MedVis was able to launch a public-facing website for clients to track analytics. Nearly 3,000 learners have downloaded and are using the app.

“The Studio has helped us explore the market and determine the most advantageous ways for us to bring our app to more learners,” said Kyle. “We wanted to know whether we should continue having OSF seek interested clients one at a time or shift to a different state.”

After showcasing Medical Cart AR at two more conferences, OSF Innovation Studio collected more leads and attracted the attention of Summit Venture Studio, a startup studio that helps organizations commercialize software solutions.

“The OSF Innovation Studio has been working with Summit over the last few months to help them understand the maturity of the Medical Cart AR app and its commercial potential,” said Brent. “We now have an agreement for Summit Venture Studio to license the software and commercialize it outside of OSF.”

The licensing agreement developed by OSF and Summit ensures that all parties are incentivized to scale the Medical Cart AR app. OSF will have equity in the entity that will be maturing the technology in addition to a royalty agreement.

Ready for something new

For MedVis, the development of Medical Cart AR has been a labor of love. Working hand-in-hand with the Studio to commercialize the platform means expanding its impact.

“I'm most excited about the prospect of bringing our app to more people,” said Kyle. “It will give learners the time they need to gain confidence in their use of various medical carts, reducing the time it takes to intervene in a patient’s case.”

MedVis is also ready to hand off the reins to someone new.

“We are innovators, and when you operationalize a product, it can take away from your capacity to be involved with the next innovation,” said Kyle. “As a team, we are ready to ideate and support new opportunities.”