A Tampa, Florida, high school teacher, Steven A. Field, MD, offers students an engaging approach to the sciences. Among Florida educator Steven A. Field, MD’s areas of experience is human ergonomic research, and he has held appointments with corporate ergonomic committees and presented at national industry conferences.
As featured in Medical Plastic News, the focus of many niche companies such as i4 Product Design is on creating ergonomic products that increase the ease of human interaction. A major thrust by CAD designers is on making equipment in a hospital setting wearable, with a particular focus on utilizing specific areas on the head of the user.
Subjective measures such as “a comfortable fit” come to the fore in such design, with subtle differences tested on human wearers prior to decisions on whether to incorporate features such as slide and pivot capacities and modular parts.
An example of medical device design projects that resulted in diverging ergonomic routes are a pair of i4 -designed Optos desktop retinal scanning devices, the California and the Daytona. The user interface for the California model, which is employed by ophthalmologists in patient evaluations of up to 20 minutes, is distinct from the Daytona scanner, which is used on patients for less than a second.
A particular requirement was that the California model provide stabilization for the head and allow adjustability in both the scanner head and direct patient interface in ways that accommodate a wide range of users.
