Womanikin
A new product designed to save lives
The difference between life and death shouldn’t be boobs.
Did you know that women are 27% less likely to receive CPR from bystanders than men? It’s a terrifying statistic. The leading contributors to this are fear of touching a woman’s breasts inappropriately, fear of hurting women and lack of awareness that women go into cardiac arrest. But great news -- we can fix these things. And so the team at JOAN got to work.
WOMANIKIN | JOAN'S IP
The Solution
The vast majority of people learn CPR on flat-chested manikins. But the classroom actually provides the best opportunity to educate people openly about this gender disparity and get them accustomed to performing CPR on someone with breasts. Yes, to do CPR correctly you have to touch her breast. But that’s well worth it, as you may save her life. So, for her sake, get used to it. This is the idea behind the Womanikin.
The Product
A teaching tool for CPR classes, the Womanikin is a universal attachment that can fit over the vast majority of CPR dummies. It was developed in conjunction with CPR experts, under the guidance of the renowned Resuscitation Scientist leading research on this issue, and designed as a tool for instruction and to raise awareness.
Open-Source Design
In designing this product, it was important to make Womanikin a cost-efficient solution that is easily produced and easy to implement. That’s why we made the design open-source and free to download. Many CPR instructors are independent small businesses, and it’s our goal to lower the barrier for entry and get more of these in the hands of the people doing the training.
The Plan
Round one involved design and development of several units which are currently in use with our first CPR production partners. Through donations and our first grant, JOAN is currently in our second, larger round of production. We are in talks with organizations to produce and distribute on a global scale.
