CI MED Patient-Centered Health Make-a-Thon Prototypes Address Gaps in Health Care

Innovator teams led by Carle Illinois College of Medicine (CI MED) students are drawing on the lived experiences of real patients to inspire solutions that improve health care delivery and outcomes. It was all part of CI MED’s newly designed two-day Patient-Centered Health Make-a-Thon. The event produced seven new product prototypes that incorporate design thinking, technology, and engineering principles to address specific gaps in health care identified by patients.

As the first engineering-based college of medicine, CI MED holds an annual health make-a-thon competition to spark innovations in health care, but this year, real patients worked alongside student teams in the innovation process. The patient partners brought a first-person perspective on problems ranging from autoimmunity and trauma to caregiver dynamics and organ transplants.

CI MED’s physician-innovators led cross-disciplinary teams that included students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s School of Art and Design, the Gies College of Business, the Grainger College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine. Collaborating with patients, the teams brainstormed solutions and developed initial prototypes to present to a panel of judges with expertise in medicine, accessible design, innovation, and engineering. The top three teams shared in a prize pool of $10,000 in funding to further develop their prototypes.

Prize-winning solutions for 2025 are listed below:

1^st place ($5000) – K.H.A.O.U.L.A (Kinetic Home Automated Oxygen Unit Linking Assistant)

This solution is designed to meet the needs of patients who rely on home oxygen therapy for their well-being by streamlining the process of switching to a new oxygen tank when the old one is emptied. The new device is a smart, dual-tank connector that keeps two cylinders connected simultaneously, automatically switches before one is empty, and delivers a steady, regulated flow. Students also developed a proof-of-concept app to accompany the physical device called “My Oxygen Tracker.” The prototype was inspired by a patient who had undergone a double-lung transplant and relies on oxygen therapy.

• Team members: From CI MED, Team Leader Ifrah Hammad, Jocelyn Chen, Winnie Gong, Lauren Sargeant, Venkatesh Shenoy, and Sydni Silverman; from Gies College of Business, Meghan Calk and Calista Gunawan; from the Grainger College of Engineering, Victoria Pekala and Soundarya Sivakumar; and Johnny Plonsker from Illinois’ College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

2^nd place ($3000) – ProcedurePal

The ProcedurePal team designed a prototype of a built-in module on EHR charts, which gauges patients’ comprehension of their upcoming surgical procedures, identifying potential gaps in provider-to-patient health care education, and using procedure ‘quiz’ results to generate key questions patients may want to ask their providers in a personalized capacity. The module – inspired by a patient who struggled to obtain an accurate diagnosis for 15 years and through multiple surgeries – is aimed at improving patient understanding of surgical procedures to enhance self-advocacy and patient-provider trust.

• Team members: From CI MED, Team Leader Hein Kim, Yasash Gorusu, Borna Dianati, Leo Zhang, and Georgianna Khong; from the Grainger College of Engineering, Vanessa Gonzalez and Rhea Nagabhyru; from the Gies College of Business, Kasey H. and Wen-Hsin Chang; and Dana Delaney from Illinois’ College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. 

3^rd place ($2000) – FlexAble

FlexAble is designed to empower hands, support resilience, and restore everyday freedom for patients with reduced grip strength that prevents them from completing daily tasks. It is a wearable assistive glove that provides extra grip strength and hand support, flexible sensors to detect finger movement, and is adjustable for comfort and daily use. The device was inspired by a patient with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) who experiences severe fatigue and joint pain.

• Team members: From CI MED, Team Leader Isha Bhagavatula; from the University of Illinois-Chicago medical students Izabela Stankiewicz and Jonathan Silberstein; University of Chicago molecular engineering student Amirali Monz; from the Gies College of Business, Alana Heinrichs, Shaili Patel, and Zryan Ahmed; from the Grainger College of Engineering, Sharon Ignatius Newton; and Zoe Niezyniecki from Industrial Design in Illinois’ College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The 2025 patient-centered health make-a-thon was a collaboration between CI MED, the Siebel Center for Design, the (dis)Ability Design Studio, and the Beckman Institute.

Editor's note: Virgil Ward and Team FlexAble provided photographs for this article.