As a catalyst for change, NXT actively partners with product developers, architects, industrial designers, behavioral scientists, physicians, and other healthcare professionals to explore new concepts in healthcare delivery. We then use empirical research methods to objectively and scientifically determine how products and concepts perform in a clinical setting with special regard to how well they meet human need.

NXT Explorations

NXT Explorations are the hallmark of NXT. These initiatives allow corporations or businesses to sponsor a specific project based needs in the healthcare market. Two recent award-winning examples, Patient Room of the Future (link) and Patient Room 2020 (link), focused on redesigning patient room environments to better meet the human needs of patients and caregivers.

A NXT Exploration is collaborative in nature and typically brings together people from private industry, academia and healthcare organizations to design and explore new concepts around a particular area of healthcare delivery. This work occurs at a pre-competition stage, and therefore, is not exclusive. However, there may be opportunities for companies to share in intellectual property and licensing rights from individual products developed through a NXT Exploration.

Sponsorship of a NXT Exploration project is defined as contributing:

• Funds to offset exploration costs (designers, researchers, capital, equipment, overhead expense)
• Material, product and expertise
• Time and personnel to serve as members of the exploration team