"Concept car" design method in medicine: redesigning an incubators mattress

When a child is born premature, he is usually placed inside an incubator in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. With the goal to design a new mattress for within these incubators a multidisciplinary consortium was established. In order to broaden the creative space, and, thus inspire further innovation, the design team decided to develop a controversial, but plausible incubator bed prototype through a "concept car" approach. This paper describes the process of introducing the "concept car" method into a medical setting and its effect within a multidisciplinary consortium. Through an in depth discussion and presentation of the prototype, an evaluation of the design was achieved. Questions, discussions and criticism were elicited from the consortium partners, which would serve as inspiration material for future developments within the consortium. This way of realizing ideas into a 1:1 scale prototype proved to stimulate inter-disciplinary thinking and opened doors to creativity on various levels.