Circular Prototyping in Healthcare: Creating Lasting Change Through Design
Circular design is reshaping healthcare, and the pressure to adopt it is real. Linear product models generate waste, drive up costs, and shorten device lifespans. At INDEED Innovation, we design with a systemic mindset, prototyping not just products but entire product-service systems.
The SmartSeat, an adaptive smart medical seat under development to prevent pressure ulcers in patients with limited mobility, shows what circular prototyping can do when applied to a genuinely complex clinical challenge.
Circularity Starts at the Beginning
True circularity begins on the first day of the design process. When sustainability is addressed late, it typically conflicts with engineering, procurement, and service requirements. Embedding circularity from the outset means life extension, modularity, repairability, and refurbishment become core design principles, not retrofits.
The SmartSeat’s design starts with these principles. Its adaptive hydraulic system continuously adjusts to redistribute pressure, reducing the risk of skin damage for patients who are paralysed, elderly, or otherwise immobile. But beyond function, each internal component, from hydraulic units to sensor modules and control electronics, is designed to be modular and replaceable. This means the product can be repaired, upgraded, and refurbished throughout its life, delivering sustained benefits to both patients and healthcare systems.
Prototyping early and iteratively allows the team to test technical performance alongside the feasibility of circular features. The Double Diamond design process supports this: diverge to explore all system challenges, converge to define solutions that meet clinical, operational, and circular goals. Integrating circularity from day one means design decisions serve both human-centred outcomes and long-term sustainability.
Mapping the System: Complexity Made Visible
Circular solutions require understanding the system in which a product operates. The SmartSeat sits at the intersection of three layers:
- Human layer: Patients with limited movement, family caregivers, nursing staff, biomedical engineers
- Operational layer: Ward workflows, infection-control protocols, charging, cleaning, and linen management
- Value layer: Procurement teams, insurers, service partners, parts suppliers, refurbishment centres, and regulators
Mapping these stakeholders reveals critical leverage points. Nurses spend significant time repositioning patients and managing wound care, an insight that highlights the clinical value of a seat that actively manages pressure, reducing staff workload while improving patient comfort and minimising costly interventions.
System mapping also surfaces hidden bottlenecks. Maintenance schedules and component replacements are potential operational pain points. By integrating live pressure data, hospitals can anticipate which units require servicing before failure occurs, streamlining workflows and preventing unnecessary downtime. Suppliers and service partners benefit from predictive insights as well, enabling just-in-time delivery of replacement modules.
The SmartSeat generates real-time clinical data through its companion app, allowing staff to monitor pressure distribution remotely, detect early warning signs, and plan maintenance efficiently. System mapping ensures that every stakeholder, from patients to service teams, can interact with the device in ways that make circular strategies like repair and refurbishment practical under real hospital conditions.
From Roadmap to Realisation: Designing for Longevity
A circular roadmap translates design principles into actionable engineering and business goals. For the SmartSeat, the roadmap is built on three pillars:
1. Modularity
The SmartSeat is composed of independent hydraulic, sensor, and electronic modules. Each can be replaced or upgraded without disassembling the entire seat. Modularity enables repair, refurbishment, and technology upgrades, allowing the device to evolve with both medical standards and user needs over time.
2. Repairability
Components are accessible with minimal tools, enabling hospital staff or technicians to perform repairs quickly. This reduces downtime, ensures continuity of patient care, and limits the need for full unit replacements. Repairability also has direct economic relevance: it extends asset life and reduces the total cost of ownership for healthcare providers.
3. Refurbishment
Seats returned at the end of their clinical lifecycle undergo inspection, cleaning, and selective replacement of worn components, cushions, hydraulic modules, and electronics are updated to current standards. Refurbishment extends product life, creates recurring revenue streams, and keeps materials in use rather than in landfill.
The roadmap also defines KPIs: mean time between failures (MTBF), reduction in pressure ulcer incidence, refurbishment yield, and material lifecycle metrics. Together, these track both clinical and circular performance.
Prototyping Circular Features: What Is Being Tested
Circular prototyping goes beyond functional validation. For the SmartSeat, the team is testing:
- Modular repair workflows: how quickly can a nurse or technician replace a hydraulic module or sensor? Are spare parts readily available?
- Refurbishment feasibility: can returned units be inspected, reconditioned, and redeployed efficiently?
- Trust and adoption: do staff and patients feel confident using refurbished SmartSeats?
- Smart data integration: does real-time monitoring reduce interventions, medication use, and risk of complications?
During pilot testing, SmartSeats are being placed in multiple wards with varying patient profiles. Technicians observe the ease of swapping modular components under real hospital conditions, while nurses provide feedback on accessibility and usability. These insights have already driven several design iterations: the hydraulic module was repositioned for faster access, sensor modules were standardised for interchangeability, and the app interface was updated to communicate maintenance needs more clearly.
Human and Social Factors: The True Impact
Circular design is ultimately about people. The SmartSeat improves:
- Patients’ quality of life: less pain, better sleep, fewer complications, greater independence.
- Caregivers’ workload: reduced physical strain and more time for direct care.
- Hospital efficiency: lower incidence of pressure sores, fewer surgical interventions, reduced drug consumption.
- Families and society: stress reduction, improved patient outcomes, and decreased environmental footprint.
“Preventing pressure ulcers is about more than comfort. It is about dignity, independence, and reducing the strain on caregivers and healthcare systems.”
Dr. Helen McCarthy, Wound Care Specialist
Patients are empowered to understand their own condition (if possible) through insights from the SmartSeat’s companion app, allowing them to participate actively in their care. For family caregivers, this transparency reduces anxiety and enhances trust in hospital protocols. Nurses experience less physical strain and fewer repetitive interventions, freeing time for more personalized patient interactions. Socially, the reduced incidence of pressure ulcers means fewer hospital stays, less medicine, and fewer invasive procedures, contributing to a more resilient and sustainable healthcare system.
Business Models Built Around Circular Design
Circular design enables business models that benefit both manufacturers and healthcare providers. For the SmartSeat, this includes:
- Service and leasing: hospitals lease units, which are later returned for refurbishment
- Refurbishment revenue: recurring income from upgraded units and spare parts
- Local service hubs: regional repair infrastructure that creates jobs and reduces logistics
- Predictive maintenance: live data reduces emergency expenditures and extends asset life
- Key Takeaways for Circular Prototyping
- Embed circularity early: Modular, repairable, and refurbishable.
- Map the system: Stakeholder insights reveal where interventions deliver maximum impact.
- Plan for scalability: Circular design can extend to preventive care for office workers, wheelchair users, and elderly home care.
- Prototype beyond function: Test repair, refurbishment, and user trust alongside clinical performance.
- Focus on human outcomes: Quality of life and dignity are central.
Refurbishing a SmartSeat costs significantly less than purchasing a new unit while delivering comparable clinical performance. Circular business models align operational cost reduction for hospitals with recurring revenue for manufacturers, demonstrating that ecological responsibility and financial performance can point in the same direction.
Expanding the System: Beyond the Hospital Ward
While patients with limited mobility, paralysed individuals and elderly patients, are the primary users, the SmartSeat’s design architecture has broader potential:
- Wheelchair users: continuous pressure monitoring and comfort optimisation
- Elderly care at home: independence supported by smart monitoring and modular, serviceable devices
- Office environments: preventive seating for sedentary lifestyles, reducing musculoskeletal issues over time
The same modular design, repairable components, and refurbishment logic apply across these contexts. Software and sensor updates allow the platform to evolve without replacing the entire unit, maximising value across multiple user groups.
Designing With People, Not Just For Them
Participatory design ensures solutions are adopted, trusted, and effective. For the SmartSeat:
- Workshops with patients and caregivers have revealed comfort priorities and operational needs
- Contextual testing in hospital wards has identified maintenance bottlenecks
- Iterative feedback has shaped adjustments to modularity, repair workflows, and the app interface
Co-designing with users means circular features become usable and desirable in practice. Adoption rates improve, and refurbished units are more likely to be trusted, which is what closes the loop between technical design intent and real-world clinical use.
About the Project
The SmartSeat is being developed as part of a funded research and innovation project supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Germany), through the ZIM programme (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand). The project brings together a consortium of specialists spanning design, engineering, materials science, and clinical application:
- INDEED Innovation
- Technische Universität Dresden
- saxcare
- DEKUBITEL
- Institut für Leichtbau und Kunststofftechnik
- FGMD GmbH
- ICM — Institut Chemnitzer Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V.
Alex Dumler
Industrial Design
Product Development
Ecodesign
