Aged Care Insite Issue 92 | December 2015 - January 2016 | Page 33

technology

The winning
design?
Easy call

residential aged-care facilities were even
having to modify their existing devices by
building up the thumb buttons with gauze
and tape and so forth, just to allow residents
to activate them effectively. We’ve gotten
rid of buttons totally. We use a silicone
compressible air bulb, so it can be activated
by any part of the body that can depress it.

What were some of the other important
design inclusions that were considered
throughout the project?

Several honours for new
nurse assistance button that
is safer, simpler for residents
with disabilities to use.
Sandy Walker interviewed by Dallas Bastian

A

new device that allows people
with physical disabilities to call
for assistance in a way that wasn’t
possible before has won a series of awards.
The call button, developed by
researchers from Flinders University and
the University of South Australia, received
the Gold Design Award, President’s Award
and Premier’s Award at the Design Institute
of Australia (DIA) Awards.
The device was designed by a team
comprising associate professor Sandy
Walker from Flinders University, who worked
previously at UniSA, UniSA industrial design
graduates Daniel Weiss and Robert White,
and the industrial design program director,
Dr Peter Schumacher.
The team was approached for the
project by Hills Health Solutions, which had
received feedback that people with arthritis
couldn’t use many nurse call devices.
During the design phase, the team visited
aged-care facilities and spoke with carers,
healthcare professionals and residents.

They then developed a pendant that glows
in the dark, provides activation feedback
and allows users to squeeze or press it with
any part of their body.
The DIA judges said the work was an
outstanding example of how an organised
design process, coupled with thorough
research and customer insight, could lead
to an innovative and successful product.
Here, Walker tells Aged Care Insite what
prompted the creation of the device,
as well as the ways it’s changing
patient-nurse interactions.

ACI: What are some of the key differences
between this nurse call device and
previous iterations, and how does it help
people with physical disabilities?
SW: The device uses a totally new activation
technology. Previously, nurse call devices
were predominantly thumb-activated and
given that the thumb is the most used digit
on the hand, that’s one of the first fingers to
become affected with osteoarthritis. Many

Once we started visiting residential agedcare facilities and talking to the carers and
resid [