The Global Care Ecosystems of 3D Printed Assistive Devices

TL;DR

This paper explores the structure, challenges, and success factors of global ecosystems involving makers, clinicians, and users in creating 3D printed assistive devices, highlighting the importance of collaboration and follow-up practices.

Contribution

It uncovers the existence of multi-stakeholder care ecosystems in 3D printed assistive technology and provides socio-technical recommendations for their sustainable development.

Findings

Multi-stakeholder ecosystems exist and are more successful.

Follow-up practices with formal agreements improve sustainability.

Ecosystem features reduce device abandonment.

Abstract

The popularity of 3D printed assistive technology has led to the emergence of new ecosystems of care, where multiple stakeholders (makers, clinicians, and recipients with disabilities) work toward creating new upper limb prosthetic devices. However, despite the increasing growth, we currently know little about the differences between these care ecosystems. Medical regulations and the prevailing culture have greatly impacted how ecosystems are structured and stakeholders work together, including whether clinicians and makers collaborate. To better understand these care ecosystems, we interviewed a range of stakeholders from multiple countries, including Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, France, India, Mexico, and the U.S. Our broad analysis allowed us to uncover different working examples of how multiple stakeholders collaborate within these care ecosystems and the main challenges they face. Through our study, we were able to uncover that the ecosystems with multi-stakeholder collaborations exist (something prior work had not seen), and these ecosystems showed increased success and impact. We also identified some of the key follow-up practices to reduce device abandonment. Of particular importance are to have ecosystems put in place follow up practices that integrate formal agreements and compensations for participation (which do not need to be just monetary). We identified that these features helped to ensure multi-stakeholder involvement and ecosystem sustainability. We finished the paper with socio-technical recommendations to create vibrant care ecosystems that include multiple stakeholders in the production of 3D printed assistive devices.