Getinge Array
Team Project 2020/2021
Collaboration with Getinge.

ECG monitoring for Intensive Care
ECG monitoring is one of the basic vital sign measurements that is carried out in hospital intensive care units. The sensor setup has to stay on the patient’s body often for weeks, gets unplugged, cleaned and is part of many daily routines of the healthcare professionals. Our goal in this project was to dive deep into this specific context to come up with a conceptual solution that improves ECG monitoring for patients and medical experts.



prototyping-focused medical design process
building, testing & on-site validation with expert users
the current setup
Five individual ECG cables get attached to electrode stickers on the patients chest. The setup is hard-wired to the monitoring equipment next to the bed and limits the patients ability to move freely.
medical experts prefer simpler solutions
to improve hospital workflows and patient comfort
prototyping sprints & evaluation
mock up sprints with subsequent testing and discussion
idea evaluation
In total we built and tested over 25 different prototype iterations of product arrangements, adjustment mechanisms and cable layouts.
During our evaluations we ranked them based on four key principles: product architecture, patient comfort, cleanability & handling.
This ay we were able to get froma big pool of promising ideas to one concept direction.
prototyping-focused medical design process
building, testing & on-site validation with expert users

the final direction - the single-line sensor
reducing the amount of cables simplifies the current monitoring setup
designed to fit intensive care workflows
handling & arrangement based on user insights
The sensor is designed to stay on the human body.
Its minimalistic shape is easy to clean, intuitive to handle and declutters the appearance of patients in general. The cable length can be adjusted easily to fit different body shapes and battery management routines can be implemented in the daily routines of healthcare professionals.


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five in one
The five individually shielded cables
are housed in one single casing.

the head of the sensor array
works as multifunctional access point for nurses
the head of the sensor array
The head is positioned on the shoulder which
makes it accessible for the nurses at all times.
It houses the battery, the antenna and a subtle
light interface to check its status.
Its omnidirectional shape allows for body
movements and flexible positioning.
improved attachment & fit
offering flexible movement for all body shapes & sizes
easy storage
During cleaning or treatments nurses detach the sensor array and place it in the dock mounted next to the bed.
The dock houses spare batteries and offers hidden charging that is seamlessly integrated in the nurses workflow
the dock
While stored in the dock the array gets charged simultaniously.
The adjustable mounting strap offers flexibility for all intensive care setups.
The spare battery in the dock gives an additional charging option.
the receiver
The receiver gets plugged into the patient monitor next to the bed and enables the wireless data transfer on an encrpted wireless protocoll.
durability focus
The Array monitoring kit is a set of
tools designed for medical experts
that has to withstand the daily
routines and cleaning in hospital
intensive care units.
fully arranged sensor setup
cable length can be shortened to achieve perfect fit
Benefit of Array
Array reduces the current ECG monitoring setup to an elegant single-line solution that feeds gathered data wirelessly into the patient monitoring system. It helps to streamline the workflow of healthcare workers as they spend less time untangling cables and offers more comfort and better flexibility in movement for patients.

This group project was created in 2020 as a part of the
Advanced Product Design Programme at Umeå Institute of Design. 
The project was carried out in collaboration with Getinge.