MIC Fellows lead redesign of Pediatric Oncology treatment rooms

March 11, 2011 - The Medical Innovation Center (MIC) hosted an ideation session at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) to redesign room to be safer, more comfortable and nurturing for pediatric patients receiving radioiodine labeled metaiodobenzylguanidine (I-131 MIBG). I-131 MIBG is a highly radioactive cancer treatment for neuroblastoma. The child undergoing the treatment is three to five year old and is isolated in the room for up to five days with limited parent and staff access.

The Medical Innovation Center ideation session brought together over thirty people with backgrounds in medicine, engineering, nuclear physics, architecture and business. The MIC also included in this event high school students interested in pursuing life science professions.

Hundreds of ideas were generated to improve patient safety, staff safety, and the overall patient experience. The MIC Fellows, with support from the center's innovation coach, guided the group to distill the hundreds of ideas down to twenty for consideration by Dr. Gregory Yanik, Professor of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, and his team at UMHS.

The MIC Fellows along with Professor Sean Vance (University of Michigan College of Architecture) are refining the ideas for implementation at the new C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. The resulting room design from the ideation session has the potential to serve as a benchmark for various centers providing MIBG treatment across the country.

The need for a redesign of the MIBG treatment rooms was identified while the MIC Fellows' were immersed in the clinical environment in the Department of Pediatric Oncology. There they observed a six-year-old child undergoing treatment for neuroblastoma, a cancerous tumor that develops in infants and children, and felt they could improve the experience for the child and the caregivers.

Based on observations and discussion with clinicians and radiation safety experts, the MIC Fellows focused on three areas for improvement: room design, patient and caregiver safety, and communication between patient and family.

Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid tumor in children and the most common cancer in infancy. There are 650 new pediatric cases of neuroblastoma diagnosed per year in the US. Over half of these cases occur in children less than 2 years of age. However, once metastasized in children older than 18 months, cure rates are only 25-30% despite aggressive multimodal therapy with surgical, chemo, immune and radiation therapies.

The University of Michigan is completing a clinical trial with this targeted radioiodine labeled metaiodobenzylguanidine (I-131 MIBG) therapy with amazing results. While the tumor burden is decreased dramatically and results in long-term remission, the children become 'radioactive' for a three to five-day period and must be confined by strict isolation for that period of time. The new design for the room is slated to be presented by the MIC Fellows in June 2011 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.