Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4.5
Coordinating the Overall Project
The role of coordinating the overall project is not trivial. This essentially includes:
•
Monitor individual task progress, making swift changes to the workplan or
redefining goals;
•
Coordinate the research team, ensuring effective and efficient cooperation and
communication channels (within the team and also external);
•
Balance laboratory-stage development with the need to move on to productifica-
tion to achieve a useful product time-to-market;
•
Maintain frequent contact with decision makers and, when appropriate, with
media advisors;
•
Solve the plethora of problems that unexpectedly appear during development of
medical devices (many common to any engineering project).
In the case of medical devices, the two main challenges relate to obtaining results
within useful timeframes and usability issues (whether the device is employed by
medical doctors, nurses, or patients).
5
Survey
The discussion so far in this chapter follows from the individual experience of
the author in a series of research & development projects in this field. Despite
the fact that this discussion has attempted to be unbiased and provide a bird's
eye view of the entire process, it inexorably conveys a personal perspective. In
order to provide a wider and even more unbiased outlook, a survey was conducted
based on a questionnaire answered by people involved in different medical devices
development projects. These individuals were selected in order to cover the different
profiles previously described in Sect.
14.3
(researchers, practitioners, managers).
5.1
Survey Model
The questionnaire was purposefully made very simple. It contained only 4 questions.
It is important to note that no statistical significance will be derived from this
preliminary study; the number of people who answered the survey was small,
since its main purpose was to validate if there are significant asymmetries in the
perspective of the different people involved in the process.
The survey was conducted face-to-face with each of the individuals listed; names
were omitted and only profiles are listed for each person inquired. First, the Fig.
2
diagram was shown, with indication to identify if any relevant profiles were missing.
All those inquired have indicated no additional profiles, with the single exception of
