Medical Product Design Experience

Bresslergroup has over 37 years of medical product design and development experience. Founded in 1970 as Designs for Medicine, the company's first product was the Stand-Up Wheelchair. Since then, the medical product design team at Bresslergroup has designed and engineered hundreds of medical products ranging from surgical instruments, drug delivery devices, home health and rehabilitation devices, to complex medical systems.

Leaders of our medical product design and development staff include:

• Peter Bressler, Principal, FIDSA, founder of the firm. Peter started his professional career with the development of a stand up wheel chair. Over the past 40 years he's led the Bresslergroup team through hundreds of successful medical product design processes. Peter has helped develop devices as diverse as safety needles for Becton Dickinson to complex immuno assay analysis instruments. Having begun his professional career with medical product design, he’s maintained commitment to medical product design excellence over the years.

• Dave Schiff, Director of Engineering, brings 26 years of mechanical innovation for medical product design and development with products including arthroscopic instruments, bioabsorbable tacking device, needleless injectors, TA and GIA surgical staplers, automated blood glucose monitor, Lasik® microkeratome, inhalers, and other platforms for medical drug delivery. Dave runs the engineering team at Bresslergroup which includes senior and junior engineers with tons of great medical product design experience, varied skills and backgrounds and lots of advanced degrees.

• Rob Tannen, PhD, Director of Research, provides expertise and training in ethnographic observation, human factors and usability for interface and medical product design. Rob is expert in research to drive medical product design innovation. Rob is also Director of our user interface / interaction design practice and has led projects as diverse as redesign of a medical clinic for OB/Gyn practice to handheld surgical devices and clinical lab systems.

Bresslergroup has developed medical devices for organizations across the spectrum of medical products including: Becton Dickinson, Covidien, Infrascan, Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, Vidar, and Zimmer. Our engagements range form targeted projects in research, design or engineering through complete definition, specification and manufacturing support, including offshore quality assurance.

As a full-service medical product design and development firm, Bresslergroup, is comprised of three centers of expertise: research, design and engineering. In addition to these core disciplines, we are experienced and capable in project and vendor management for medical device development.

Pictured on this page is a portable medical oxygen concentrator developed for Air Products and Devilbis. Air Products developed the proof of concept model for a lightweight, portable oxygen concentrator which would deliver up to 5 liter/minute high purity oxygen. Bresslergroup joined their medical product design and development team to help design, engineer and commercialize the new medical product.

When we began the project, the Air Products R&D had a benchtop proof of concept device which proved they could generate the right amount of high purity oxygen. They turned to us to turn the concept into a real product that consumers could use and medical experts could specify with confidence.

Initial research included significant competitive and user study to define the system feature set. Human factors requirements for weight, size, noise and other user centric features drove the medical product design team toward the smallest possible product size. Mechanical and electronics were developed in parallel to ensure efficiency of product design. The team also investigated appropriate aesthetics to identify styling options for the device which wanted to be discrete while fostering pride in new found mobility.

Meeting low weight and noise targets for this medical product design drove significant engineering effort to optimize the package. Medical customers often sleep while using the product and don’t want to cart around a noisy unit. Interface elements and electronic controls were also developed for ease of use and failsafe performance.

Ultimately the team developed the device shown on this page. The unit met performance requirements, delivering the most high purity oxygen per pound on the market. The new medical product was also designed to be easy to understand and use by medical customers, including a non-intimidating look and simplified user interface elements. The new unit also led to additional IP protection for Air Products and helped them develop new business partnerships for distribution of consumer medical devices.

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