Continuum has received seven International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) from the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA). The IDEAs were awarded to Continuum for the company's work with Mindray, the Herman Miller Compass system, Daktari Diagnostics, Preserve's Mail-Back Pack, the Herman Miller Compass research, the Leverage Freedom LFC Sport Chair and the Oreck Edge vacuum.
"We are honored to be part of the team recognized for this work. Each of these products makes a positive impact on people's lives," said Harry West, Continuum's CEO. "Passionate concern for the human in human-centered design is what drives us. These projects are great examples of how, by developing the right ideas and making them real, we not only enhance lives in very practical ways, but also drive meaningful business results for the companies that launch them."
Mindray
Continuum's collaboration with Mindray won a gold IDEA. The Mindray V Series Patient Monitor is designed to provide critical information and easy access to healthcare professionals in the most chaotic environments. The Mindray V Series are the first patient monitors to use a vertical display, which allows for more information to be displayed in a clear, easily readable format in a way that takes up less space in crowded critical care rooms.
Herman Miller Compass System
Continuum won a silver medal for its innovative approach to developing a modular system of interchangeable components for patient rooms, caregiver work areas, and other clinical spaces. The system is designed to adapt to changing needs in hospitals and improve the experience of working in a hospital, visiting with a patient, and most importantly, healing. Expected to be Herman Miller's largest clinical product line, Compass represents an entirely new business and revenue stream for the company.
Daktari Diagnostics
Continuum's work for Daktari was awarded a bronze IDEA. The Daktari device is designed to provide on-the-spot CD4 counts with a finger stick in about eight minutes. The device's innovative process overcomes the need for complex preparation techniques, enabling the device to be simple, inexpensive, and most importantly, portable - ideal for caregivers traveling to remote areas of the world and working outside traditional medical facilities.
Leveraged Freedom LFC Sport Chair
The partnership between Continuum and the MIT Mobility Lab resulted in a bronze IDEA for their Leveraged Freedom LFC Sport Wheelchair. It's a high performance, off-road wheelchair that goes uphill and off-road with ease, increases speed over distance and is lightweight and easy to repair. Utilizing a technology developed to assist disabled populations in developing countries who traverse challenging terrain, this high-performance chair will enable people with disabilities the same affordances as a mountain bike.
Preserve
The Mail-Back Pack system for the Preserve toothbrush also won a bronze. The innovative Mail-Back Pack protects the toothbrush during shipping, presents it well at point of sale, incorporates a hang tag feature, and doubles as a return envelope. At the end of the toothbrush's life, the user puts it in the mail-back package, and sends it back to Preserve, so it can have another lifecycle -- as plastic for park benches and playgrounds. After debuting at Whole Foods Market and Target, the new package was outselling the previous package by 45%.
Oreck Edge
Continuum garnered a bronze IDEA for the development of the Oreck Edge. The Edge is a two-piece lightweight vacuum cleaner that is the most powerful Oreck to date. It consists of an upright vacuum for floors and a handheld vacuum for stairs and furniture. It's designed to be a more flexible cleaning system that supports the end-to-end cleaning experience.
Herman Miller Compass research
Continuum's holistic research with Herman Miller for the Compass System, which focused on the entire ecosystem of care - not just the patient - won a bronze IDEA. Research focused on patients and how to heal them, but also on understanding the needs of physicians, nurses, custodial staff, patients' families, hospital administrators and architects. This enabled the team to design a system that would help them all achieve their shared goal: Better patient care.
"We found our partnership and collaboration with Continuum remarkable because they understood our philosophy of human-centered design," said Jim Fidacaro, Vice President Marketing and Product Development with Mindray. "Our teams lived and breathed the fact that a typical nurse is 5' 6" tall, 47 years old, has failing eyesight, and performs multiple complex tasks at once. Our Mindray V Series Patient Monitors take into account every possible environmental factor, from the caregiver to the patient to today's hospital room. The result is that medical professionals now have innovative products to help them focus on the most critical information and thus provide more effective patient care."