In collaboration with Elizabeth Raby.
PROBLEM
- Workshops and clinical visits indicated engagement challenges relating to:
- Lack of basic knowledge about the liver: location, size, feel.
- Difficulty to relate to the risks of internal organ damage that is not externally visible.
Working in the Helen Hamlyn Centre of Design (Healthcare lab) . Project funded by NHS Innovations South East, Portsmouth City Council, Portsmouth Queen Alexandra Hospital (QAH) and the Wessex Academic Health Science Network.
INTERVENTION
- Experimenting with a variety of materials and methods (fast cast, resin, silicone, fiberglass) we designed and built a set of 3D communication tools to empower and support clinical staff in a variety of settings, in educating and engaging individuals suffering from alcoholism.
- The liver models were built to scale using different materials, weights, textures and colours to represent different degrees of liver damage.
- In clinical trials the communication models provoked engaging responses from both the audience and clinical staff and proved to be a very effective educational tool.