innovation
Guidance starts with understanding the workflow
A collaborative academic cryoablation needle-guide concept.
- Role
- Team concept co-developer
- Status
- Academic venture concept
Context and real problem
AcuPoint explored image-integrated guidance for multi-needle cryoablation. The academic problem was how to translate a procedural need into a design question that could be explored through early prototyping and review.
Andres’s role
I co-developed the concept, contributing to workflow mapping, early prototype thinking, technology-readiness assessment, competitive review, and the team pitch.
Collaborators and setting
The work was a team venture within McMaster’s biomedical-innovation program. The account credits a shared academic effort and does not imply sole invention, a clinical appointment, or an institutional product endorsement.
Methods and tools
The team considered workflow requirements, competing approaches, and the evidence a guidance concept would need as it developed. Early prototyping and a structured pitch helped frame those questions; they did not establish procedural effectiveness.
Responsibility and safety
A guidance device could affect consequential clinical decisions. Safety, validation, regulatory requirements, and appropriate use must be addressed before a concept can become a clinical tool. This summary contains no patient geometry, procedural imagery, or confidential design specifications.
Outputs and outcomes
The team developed an academic concept and pitch, recognised in the inaugural MBI Pitch Competition. Device validation, regulatory development, and clinical testing remain future work.
What I learned
A clinical need becomes a better design brief when the workflow is understood in detail. I want the proposed tool’s limits and the next validation question to be as clear as its intended function.
Current status and links
AcuPoint is described here at the academic-concept stage. The linked professional profile documents the project; a current product-development status or cleared demonstration is not available.