SE Valley Times

Sheetal Jha, a biomedical engineering student, had specific expectations for her summer internship. "I was looking to gain hands-on experience in product development and work on real-world projects and collaborate closely with professionals in the field," she said.

Jha and 11 other students from Arizona State University met those expectations through the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation’s Health Entrepreneurship Accelerator Lab (HEALab) internship. The group was selected from over 100 applicants to address an urgent need for one of the Valley’s largest healthcare organizations.

In partnership with HonorHealth, this year’s project focused on redesigning the Workstation on Wheels (WOW) cart for nurses. Nurse leaders from HonorHealth described the current carts as “clunky” and unwieldy, making them difficult to maneuver during long shifts. Additionally, the carts were too large to fit into rooms at HonorHealth’s newest facility, necessitating a redesign.

With only four weeks to tackle this problem, the students divided tasks according to their strengths. Their diverse academic backgrounds—including integrative health, biomedical engineering, health entrepreneurship and innovation, and human systems engineering—proved beneficial.

"I worked closely with the HonorHealth team, focusing on user needs and ergonomic design. My role primarily involved concept generation and creating detailed visualizations for a medical device," Jha said.

Karanraj Govindraj, a second-year graduate student in industrial engineering, contributed by designing various components using CAD software and conducting stress and structural analysis. "The hands-on experience provided me with valuable insights into the challenges and intricacies of product design and development," he said.

Throughout the process, students had access to nurses and other healthcare providers at HonorHealth who regularly use WOW carts. They also received guidance from HEALab Director Mike Collins; local experts like Andrew Heuerman from The Patient Company; product development companies Vulcreate and Spline; and Kate Vatt on patents and IP protection.

"We brought in local experts like Andrew Heuerman from The Patient Company to help get the interns started with designs and features needed. We had Vulcreate and Spline come in to mentor the students... We also had a visit from Kate Vatt," Collins said.

At the end of their internship, students presented their final design to HonorHealth during a pitch-style presentation. "I am very proud of the result... In just four short weeks... they worked together to share ideas [and] create designs," Collins added.

Zoraida Salas-Allison, clinical director at HonorHealth's Deer Valley Medical Center, acknowledged their hard work: "They took an outdated mobile cart and made it into a true workstation on wheels."

The future steps for this project remain undetermined but are expected to continue evolving through collaboration between ASU students and HonorHealth staff.

For Jha, this internship exceeded her expectations by allowing her to hone technical skills while understanding collaborative engineering projects' nature. "Not only did I learn key aspects of medical device design... I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity," she concluded.

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