Increasingly, large businesses are becoming more engaged in social change. Rather than giving cash donations to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), some companies are using their expertise to directly help more fragile segments of society. The corporate payback is not measured in profit, but in brand equity, employee motivation and inspiration for future work. At Philips Design, that program exists since 2005 under the name ‘Philanthropy by Design’. Its second project, the Breath Counter, is a timing device created to help caregivers in poor, rural areas to diagnose pneumonia.
The Breath Counter is simple but effective, and it needs to be. Pneumonia is the number one cause of death in children under five worldwide, killing an average of two million each year. The disease is diagnosed by counting the number of breaths taken by the patient in one minute, as those infected will have a much higher count than healthy children. To be sure of results, healthcare workers should perform the test three times. The results are then compared to the specified pneumonia classification numbers for that region. In most cases, a treatment of antibiotics will cure the child.
But despite the relative simplicity of detection, the current timing device distributed by NGOs is too basic and unreliable. According to UNICEF and Save the Children, the fact that it does not comprise a method of recording breath counts means that caregivers often forget the correct figures, which leads to poor diagnoses. Also, the timer’s battery often gives out, without warning, after only one year.
The Breath Counter was designed by a team led by Megumi Fujikawa, Philips Design’s Interaction Design Consultant in Healthcare, to solve these issues and more. Solar cells power the device, extending its lifespan to potentially more than five years. An LCD screen logs three test results, making them easy to compare. Aesthetically, the Breath Counter looks like a medical tool, to give the user a feeling of commitment and contribution to this important issue. For those who cannot read, Philips Design created a simple manual with clear visuals that explain the procedure. “It was initially very difficult to understand the current issues without having been in the field,” Megumi explains. “Over time, putting together our skills and the feedback from the NGOs made it seem obvious what needed to be improved.”
Megumi hopes that the Breath Counter will have as much impact as Philanthropy by Design’s flagship project, the Chulha stove for healthy indoor cooking. The Chulha was initially designed for rural and semi-urban India to be simple to use and maintain, locally produced, relatively cheap, and easily made. Most importantly, it significantly reduces indoor pollution, a problem that kills 1.6 million people each year through respiratory illness. The Chulha has since won Red Dot and IDEA awards for design excellence. And the Breath Counter has already been awarded its first design award – a bronze IDEA.
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