Elekta and DCA win User-Centered Product Design Award for Elekta MR-Linac

PHILADELPHIA, October 3, 2018 – Elekta (EKTA-B.ST) and DCA Design International Ltd have won the prestigious Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Stanley H. Caplan User-Centered Product Design Award 2018 for Elekta Unity, Elekta’s MR-linac. Elekta Unity combines high-field 1.5 Tesla MR imaging, precision radiation therapy and intelligent software, giving clinicians the previously unattainable ability to see what they treat in real time. This U.S.-based award recognizes outstanding and innovative practice in product design, alongside the user research and design methods used to both develop and evaluate the design from the early product vision to the commercially available system, which received CE-mark in June 2018.

“The needs of the patients and healthcare professionals were considered from the very outset of the project,” said David Gilmore, Director of User Experience at Elekta. “The vision for Unity was informed by a global research exercise that involved observing over 360 clinical treatment sessions, across seven treatment centres, along with more than 50 in-depth interviews. A wide range of tools from the fields of human factors and design research were used to analyze this data, directly inspiring and informing the product design.”

Dr Gilmore and Daniel Jenkins, DCA’s Human Factors and Usability Senior Skill Leader, received the award on behalf of Elekta and DCA on October 2 at the HFES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia where they also delivered a joint presentation on the product and design methodologies employed.

Rob Woolston, Managing Director at DCA added: “We are extremely proud to receive this award alongside Elekta and for the recognition of the key role that user-centred design has played in the development of Unity. This award, combined with the iF Award received earlier this year for the class-leading visual design of Unity, help to illustrate and celebrate the breadth and depth of skills involved in progressing Unity from brief to reality through a fully-integrated, evidence-based design approach. We are delighted to have been so deeply involved with this project, especially given the tremendous impact that Unity will have on the lives of cancer patients.”

To learn more, visit www.elekta.com/Unity.

View an annotated version of the presentation delivered at HFES 2018 here

Elekta Unity is pending 510(k) pre-market clearance and not available for commercial distribution or sale in the U.S.