Team Consulting
AstraZeneca challenged Team Consulting to help them design a trainer pen that’s user-centric, robust and more sustainable than others on the market. The trainer has now won a Good Design award in recognition of its innovative design and ability to train patients effectively, all while using fewer parts.
Injecting yourself for the first time can be a frightening experience for patients. Trainers are used by healthcare professionals to help their patients familiarise themselves with their device, allowing them to practice how to self-inject before they move on to the real thing. AstraZeneca came to Team Consulting with an existing trainer pen for one of their auto-injectors on the market. Their goal was to improve the trainer’s usability, ensuring patients have the best possible training experience while simplifying the mechanics to create a sustainable, yet robust device.
Our industrial designers worked to deliver a streamlined design involving fewer parts, saving around 240,000 components for every 10,000 devices made. The use of a simple internal mechanism also enabled the trainer to be more robust, easily withstanding repeated use.
The trainer offers a straightforward four step training experience, designed to accurately simulate delivering a real injection. Given the four-sided geometry of the actual auto-injector, we decided to print the onboard instructions on the sides of the trainer. Each side walks the user through a step, with text inverted at the crucial injection stage to ensure correct handling. Once used, the device can easily be reset by simply reversing the same steps. These design innovations resulted in a sustainable, patient-centric trainer pen that is already being used to help onboard patients.
Team’s combination of IFU design and robust mechanics culminated in a seamless experience to reduce user error and ensure that the trainer provides patients with the confidence needed to use their auto-injector correctly. We are delighted to have supported AstraZeneca in delivering this award-winning trainer pen design.
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