Faculty of Design

Industrial Design

Colin LeBlanc

Unicare - Simplicity in Health

Unicare is a platform for hospitals, healthcare workers, patients, and research organizations with the goal of addressing pressing issues within the Canadian healthcare space.Currently, our hospitals are experiencing issues both related to workers and logistics. These include insufficient staffing, staffing shortages, mass burnout, ageing workforces, and physical/emotional fatigue. These internal problems undermine the health and safety of the public.The aim of this project is to develop an ecosystem that seamlessly integrates cutting-edge technology with collaborative team-based care, resulting in hospitals that prioritizes both data and human needs. Unicare’s vision is to enhance patient outcomes by fostering a more favorable working environment for healthcare professionals, and better experience for patients.Overall, Unicare’s aim is to revolutionize the healthcare industry and deliver a better experience for everyone involved through informed decision-making.

“The process of developing an effective solution for a particular problem begins with identifying the right problem to solve. For me, this journey began with a personal experience. My mother, a registered nurse who worked in infection control during the pandemic, suffered from severe burnout from the increased demands of her job and retired midway through the pandemic. She is one of the most strong-minded and hardworking individuals I have ever seen, and this raised several red flags to me about the healthcare system, and made me curious to understand the organizational problems at hand.Then, the 7th of September 2022 hit. Thesis Class. Not long after, the class was tasked in finding potential subjects for our theses. Naturally, I began looking around for problems of all shapes and sizes. From casually chatting with friends and colleagues to conducting my own exploratory research from scholarly peer-reviewed to Reddit, I quickly noticed a troubling trend.The healthcare system in Canada is in trouble, and it is not being sufficiently-addressed. As I watched the news, I began to notice how Canada's healthcare system was struggling to keep up with the demands of the pandemic. My mother told me that nurses and other healthcare workers have warned of this problem for years. All of this combined into my “aha!” moment.Thus, I set out on a mission to identify the most pressing needs of healthcare workers and find a solution that could help address these needs effectively through design.”