Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI) innovative efforts in evaluating product packaging is improving the lives of those on the other side of the globe.

Australia’s Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research Jillian Skinner presented her office’s Award for Innovation to a partnership between HealthShare NSW, Arthritis Australia and GTRI. The collaborative is working to improve nutrition for patients through the world’s first Food Packaging Improvement Project.

HealthShare NSW observed that due to complex food packaging, some patients were forgoing their carefully balanced meals. As a result, recovering patients were not receiving the needed nutrition for properly healing. GTRI, who has 10 years of research experience with its Accessibility Evaluation Facility and an existing partnership with Arthritis Australia, was tasked with testing and fine-tuning the guidelines.

“We’ve taken the research we’ve already been doing over the last decade, and applied it to HealthShare New South Wales’ patients,” said Brad Fain, chief of the Human Factors Program Office with the Human Systems Engineering Branch in GTRI’s Electronic Systems Laboratory. “Our team is took on establishing the methodology to the types of patients they have, and we’ve helped delineate the guidelines for the types of packaging needed. HealthShare New South Wales is incorporating the recommended guidelines into its procurement strategy.”

Fain said GTRI tests multiple items a month, sent from Australia to GTRI’s main offices in Atlanta. With GTRI’s rapid turnaround, HealthShare NSW is able to update its universal procurement guidelines quickly. The national award recognizes HealthShare NSW’s and its partners’ efforts to increase the nutritional intake for all of its patients, due to the procurement strategy targeting food products that are easy to open.