Preface

The University of Minnesota has a long history in engineering applied to medicine and the development of medical devices. Today Minnesota is home to one of the highest densities of medical technology companies anywhere in the world. One example of that history is the the first wearable pacemaker, designed and built built by Earl E. Bakken (co-founder of Medtronic) in 1958 and immediately tested and used clinically by Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and colleagues at the University of Minnesota hospital.  To acknowledge the milestone contributions of these pioneers of cardiac surgery and medical devices, the University of Minnesota established the Lillehei Heart Institute  and the Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center, part of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) .

IEM is an interdisciplinary research organization funded equally by the Medical School and the College of Science and Engineering and its mission is to drive innovation by fostering multidisciplinary research, education, and collaboration with the regional medical technology industry and faculty from the University of Minnesota’s health sciences departments and College of Science and Engineering. The Professional Education and Outreach (PEO) pillar of IEM has the mission to train the current and next generation of medical technology innovators.

This book was created as part of the education mission of the PEO pillar of IEM and the Bakken Medical Devices Center. The purpose of the book is to offer a concise introduction to medical device innovation for those who are starting out, including students. Some of the material is based on innovation workshops held at medical technology conferences in Minneapolis and Tel Aviv, other material comes from the expertise of the contributing authors and still other material comes from the editors’ experiences working with innovators and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in medical device development. We thank all of the authors who have contributed material to this book. The book was developed with the support of IEM and the Bakken Medical Devices Center.

William Durfee, PhD; Professor and Director of Design Education, Department of Mechanical Engineering; Director, Bakken Medical Devices Center

Paul A. Iaizzo, PhD; Professor, Visible Heart Laboratories, Department of Surgery; Associate Director and Medtronic Bakken Chair, Institute for Engineering in Medicine