A design team, led by Professor Chajoong Kim in the Graduate School of Creative Design Engineering (CDE) at UNIST has come up with a brilliant child-friendly design idea to help children have fun during their hospital stays. unveiled their child-friendly design idea, aimed at redesigning and improving the existing IV poles used in hospitals.
The new IV pole design, namely IMON is aimed at redesigning and improving the existing IV poles used in hospitals. It is a pushchair-type IV fluid holder design concept, specifically aimed at children. Their aim in carrying out this project was to design a height adjustable IV stand for both adults and children with different heights and body types.
Furthermore, the new child-friendly IV pole design has been recognized for design excellence at the iF Design Awards 2019, last March.
The pushchair-type IV pole, namely ‘IMON’ has been proposed by Professor Chajoong Kim’s design team in collaboration with Design Busan Co., Ltd.
The IMON proposed by Professor Chajoong Kim in collaboration with Design Busan Co., Ltd. are eqipped with compact desks for the purpose of reading books and playing boardgames. They focused on eliminating the fear of injections and needle phobia among children, thus reducing anxiety and negative emotions in hospitalized children.
Besides, this has been carried out as part of the Design Innovation Project, supported by the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) for the last two years and will soon be commercialized. This project has been participated by Professor Chajoong Kim, KwangMin Cho, SangHyun Ma, Hayeon Choi, SoYoung Kim, and SoJeong Kim from UNIST, and CEO Moo Sung Suh and KyungWook Min from Design Busan Co.,Ltd.
“Unlike adults, children seem to have quite a different experience at hospitals. And this has motivated us to redesign and improve the existing IV poles used in hospitals,” says Professor Kim. “It’s a tremendous honor to receive this award, thus knowing that world is paying attention to product designs for sick children.”
The pushchair-type IV pole, namely ‘IMON’ has been proposed by Professor Chajoong Kim’s design team in collaboration with Design Busan Co., Ltd.
Professor Kim, in collaboration with Design Busan Co., Ltd., are currently working on to commercialize IMON, as an extension to an existing industry-university project. Additional design work is underway for the production aimed at launching products in the first-half of next year.
Since 2016, Professor Kim’s design team has been recognized for design excellence by numerous international design competitions, including the United States’ Spark Design Award and Germany’s iF Design Award. In particular, the team has been contributing to enhanced corporate value through active industry-university collaborations. The team has arranged social support for the disabled, which includes child patients, elderly patients, and visually-impaired individuals, through the creation of barrier-free designs.
For over 66 years, the iF Design Awards have been held by the world’s oldest independent design organization, iF International Forum Design GmbH. These awards have become established as one of the most important design prize ceremonies in the world. The competition this year has been especially fierce with about 6,500 entries submitted from 50 different countries.
