Limb Lab, Rochester, Minnesota, won a 2017 Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal Eureka! Innovation award in product design for its artistry and innovation. The award judges called the company’s customization of prosthetic devices “an artistry and healthcare merger.”
“We’ve had so many patients come in and nobody’s ever asked what they want or what they want to do with [their prosthesis], which is very upsetting,” Marty Frana, Limb Lab’s found and CEO, told the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. “Not everybody needs the same thing. Not everybody wants the same thing.”
Frana told the paper the company is also motivated by higher healthcare costs and finds it essential that patients receive a prosthesis that works for them, rather than risk it going unused.
Limb Lab makes its work as visible as possible to push back against amputation-related stigmas, and sends videos of patients using their prostheses to the patients’ surgeons and other members of the treatment team to show the positive end result of their work.
“We talk about our office as an art studio,” said Frana.
