UMass Amherst’s Collaborative Nursing and Engineering Center Earns Prestigious Manufacturer of the Year Award in Western Mass
The Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation at UMass Amherst has been honored as Manufacturer of the Year in the 3rd Hampshire district – which includes Hampshire County, Amherst and two precincts in Granby – by the Massachusetts Legislature’s Manufacturing Caucus.
The Manufacturing Caucus is a collection of more than 70 state legislators who focus on training for manufacturing employees, encouraging innovation by helping start-ups access resources and expanding apprenticeship opportunities in key manufacturing sectors.
The Marieb Center was selected by 3rd Hampshire District Representative Mindy Domb, who said it “represents not only a new and compelling approach to research and development, but also transforms the scope and impact of healthcare device manufacturing by engaging the voices of nurses and patients directly into this process.”
The award was presented to Marieb Center co-directors Karen Giuliano and Frank Sup on Sept. 19 at the eighth annual “Making It in Massachusetts” Manufacturing Awards Ceremony, held at Polar Park, home of the Worcester Red Sox.
Combining the two fields makes this center unique, says Sup, who is also a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and director of the Mechatronics Robotics Research Lab.
“The Marieb Center is keenly focused on developing nursing and engineering collaborative innovation,” Sup says. “Our approach provides an important and fundamental opportunity for the professional and practical healthcare knowledge of nurses to be used as a driver of relevant and meaningful innovation and for engineers to expand the impact of their incredible creative expertise.”
“As the nation’s largest group of healthcare professionals, nurses use more products and services than any other professional in every conceivable setting where healthcare is delivered,” says Giuliano, joint professor in the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing and the Institute for Applied Life Sciences.
“Nurses are in a unique position to identify and address everyday healthcare issues, challenge assumptions and the status quo, and ensure that clinical outcomes research serves as the foundation for validating the effectiveness of new ways to provide healthcare,” Giuliano adds. “The mission of the Marieb Center is to develop the next generation of interdisciplinary healthcare innovation leaders.”
Two areas of innovative focus for the Marieb Center, which was recognized by BusinessWest magazine as an Innovation Healthcare Hero in 2022, are healthcare robotics, led by Sup, and improving the safety and usability of IV infusion pumps, led by Giuliano.
Sup’s work features an IV pole-sized robot with a gripper-like hand called “Stretch,” developed by the company Hello Robot.
“We’ve been using it as a test bed for students and researchers to understand how best these types of collaborative robots can assist in bedside care,” Sup says.
Giuliano’s program of laboratory research is focused on the innovation of large-volume IV smart infusion pumps, which are used to deliver life-saving fluids and medications to patients in the hospital.
As explained by Giuliano, “These two initiatives provide opportunities for both student training and the development of intellectual property. The Marieb Center has already filed its first patent with prototype manufacturing in process, and a second patent is in development.”