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A Milestone in the Modernization of Indian Healthcare: How Digital Integration is Transforming the Country’s Health System
India's Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), launched in 2021, is working to create a national digital health ecosystem by leveraging the country’s existing IT infrastructure and technologies. As Nivedita Mishra and Rashika Anand at Sambodhi Research and Communications explain, the mission represents a significant step toward modernizing India’s healthcare system. They explore ABDM's work from a health systems perspective, highlighting the existing gaps and wider systemic challenges it's addressing, and discussing the strategies it's using to foster a resilient digital health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Africa’s Startups Need Patient Capital: Could the African Diaspora Help Provide it?
African startup funding amounts to a tiny fraction of global venture capital (VC), and these investments are often concentrated on sectors like fintech and e-commerce. As a result, as Kristin H. Wilson at Innovate Africa Fund argues, African founders often lack the capital and incentive to tackle the continent’s biggest development challenges. She proposes a new approach to funding innovative African-made solutions to these issues — one that leverages the capital and entrepreneurial expertise of the African diaspora.
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- Health Care, Investing
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NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2024: Congratulations to the Three Winners
NextBillion's “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest has been a yearly tradition since 2012. The contest highlights 12 of our most-read articles from the past year and gives readers the opportunity to vote for their favorites. Here are our three Most Influential Articles of 2024, as selected by our readers.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2024: Vote for Your Favorites by Jan. 5
As we bid farewell to an eventful year, it's time for NextBillion’s annual tradition: our “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest. Each December since 2012, we've selected 12 of our most-read articles from the past year, inviting readers to vote for the ones that influenced their thinking the most. Check out the articles in this year's contest (if you haven't already), and vote for your favorites: You can vote up to once per hour between Dec. 18 and 11:59 pm EST on Jan. 5.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Impact Investing in Turbulent Times: Opportunity Amid Uncertainty
Impact investing, much like the world around us, is facing a period of prolonged turbulence, as the interconnected shocks of 2024 — from the escalating climate crisis to rising geopolitical tension — raise doubts about whether the sector can grow fast enough to make a difference. But as Florian Kemmerich at KOIS argues, the need to solve these crises may ultimately become the impetus for true scale in the industry. He explores how innovative investments can address some key global crises, and shares reasons for optimism amid the uncertainty.
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- Education, Environment, Health Care, Investing
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Developing Vaccine Infrastructure in the Age of COVID Fatigue: How Strengthening Influenza Vaccination Systems Can Prepare Us for the Next Pandemic
It's widely known in the global health community that we must prepare for the inevitable emergence of another pandemic. But as Joseph Bresee at the Task Force for Global Health explains, this threat no longer feels urgent to many people who are still exhausted from fighting COVID-19 and other global threats. And though advances in vaccine development provide reasons for hope, building the systems that deliver them is difficult and time-consuming. He explores how stabilizing and expanding global influenza vaccine delivery systems can prepare the world for a more effective response to future pandemics.
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- Health Care
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The Implications of Global Health Equity: Why Pursuing Equity May Actually Harm the Poor
The concept of global health equity has gained traction in universities, governments, global health organizations and even some businesses. But Paul Clyde at the William Davidson Institute argues that it's important to think carefully about the implications of this goal before pursuing it. He explains how improvements to healthcare in poor populations often begin with improvements in wealthier populations, and how actions taken or discouraged in the name of equity can do more harm than good in poor communities.
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- Health Care
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AI in African Healthcare: The Good, the Bad and the RECKLESS
Artificial intelligence (AI) can have a major positive impact on the cost and quality of healthcare in emerging economies. But as AI gains traction in Africa's healthcare market, Mark Wien at PocketPatientMD calls out an alarming trend: New AI solutions are being introduced into actual practice without the proper safeguards, standards and scrutiny. And even worse, these solutions are often being developed by non-medical professionals and technologists, who rush to roll out new tools without caution — and without acknowledging or perhaps even understanding the risks they pose to vulnerable patients and health systems. He urges Africa's healthcare industry — including doctors themselves — to address this issue with the seriousness it deserves.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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