Designed in Brazil

Abstract

Background Health design in Brazil has been characterized historically by replacing imported products with others that are locally manufactured on a small scale. In January 2007, the Health Design Group was created at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, a partnership between professors and scholars from the University of Sao Paulo. Aiming at documenting some important experiences on the Brazilian scene to provide historical and methodological subsidies for research, a survey was conducted to find the pioneer experiences that, using the technology available at the time they were developed, paved the way for the current research. Method Interviews and surveys in newspapers and journals were conducted with selection of some Brazilian experiences in design for health from the end of the 1950s till the early 2000s, along with its researchers. Results Several examples of design for health and historical documentation in Brazil are shown concerning the Brazilian Foundation for the Development of Science Teaching (FUNBEC), the Department of Bioengineering of the Heart Institute (InCor) of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) Medical School, the medical equipment at Rede Sarah, the Laboratory of Design and Materials Selection (LdSM) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in the field of craniofacial Orthopedics and some experiences of design are shown in the field of Ophthalmology. Conclusion: We emphasize the cross-disciplinary integration of subjects such as medicine, bioengineering and design in all the previously cited experiences. Based on these experiences and looking forward to implementing new research methods, some members of the Health Design Group are involved in the development of solutions for low vision people: first a high-power-high-optical-quality magnifying glass and secondly an innovative reading stand associated with a magnifying glass that has already been successfully tested in accordance with ethical standards by low vision patients. This experience in design of medical equipment has occurred in an interdisciplinary work with the implementation of bioethics in research.