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Return to story: The Companies and Products of the Year
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It has been an award-winning 12 months for Bang & Olufsen Medicom (Copenhagen, Denmark), a developer and supplier of drug-delivery devices and sensor-based technologies. Since September 2005, two products developed by the Bang & Olufsen group subsidiary have received a total of four prestigious design awards.
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An electronic stethoscope developed by Bang & Olufsen Medicom in partnership with 3M uses ambient noise– reduction technology.
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The company’s Helping Hand tablet-reminder device received a design award from the International Forum Design (iF; Hannover, Germany) in September 2005, and a Good Design award from the Chicago Athenaeum museum in December. That month, the E3000 electronic stethoscope, codeveloped with 3M and marketed as the 3M Littmann stethoscope, received a prestigious Danish Innovation and Design (D.I.D.) award. And in June, the stethoscope received an iF design award as well.
“Our corporate heritage means that we implicitly consider the end-user’s perception of the final product,” says Christian Husegaard, head of sales and marketing for Medicom. “We believe that this is as important in the medical field as in consumer products. This [perspective], the competency to select and develop the necessary technology, and our innovative design skills create these award-winning products.”
End-user needs were the first consideration in creating the Helping Hand, so feedback from patient groups was key. “We wanted to make a product that improved patient compliance with oral treatments for all the major involved players,” says concept development manager Paul-Erik Fabricius. “In addition, we wanted the product to be nonstigmatizing to patients, so they would not feel awkward about using it.” The name, says Fabricius, reflects the goal of the product, “a friendly helping hand, not an obtrusive device that makes patients feel like they are being watched.”
In designing the E3000 stethoscope, the challenge was to enclose an ambient noise–reducing sensor and digital signal-processing platform in a simple and attractive design, with an intuitive user interface, according to biomedical acoustics specialist Bjørn Knud Andersen. “The main reason this stethoscope is such a success is that we managed to integrate new sensor technology, proven to enhance difficult-to-hear heart murmurs in noisy environments, while keeping the look and feel of a conventional stethoscope,” Andersen says. “The technology inside in combination with the highly aesthetic appearance of the stethoscope makes the difference.”
