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The Million-dollar Fit: Companies Develop Affordable Prostheses for Use in Less Resourced Countries
EVERY YEAR thousands of people in impoverished countries undergo amputations. However, contrary to popular belief, armed conflicts or landmines are not usually to blame. Rather, the primary cause of most of these amputations is other types of trauma, such as automobile and train accidents.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Helping Low-Income Patients Breathe Easier: Three Solutions to Oxygen Market Failures
For a child with severe pneumonia—and every other patient struggling for breath—access to oxygen is a matter of life or death. And even though oxygen is just as important to hospitals and clinics as electricity and water, market failures stand between oxygen and the people who need it. While medicines and vaccines are its primary focus, the global NGO PATH recently zeroed in on how to improve oxygen supplies in low- and middle-income countries.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Hobbyist Makers vs. Global Manufacturers: Is 3D Printing Really the Solution to the Prosthetics Gap?
Be they startups or tinkerers, 3D printing innovators are trying to fill in the gaps in traditional health care, particularly in resource-constricted countries where prosthetic devices are scarce. For those who struggle through life without a limb, 3D printing offers hope. But are hobbyist makers and their 3D printers really the stopgap the limb-loss community needs? Certified prosthetist Jason Bender wades into the debate.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Health Care, Technology
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How USAID is Capitalizing on New Trends in Development Finance by Attracting Impact Investors
As the funding landscape for global health evolves, new financing models for the development and commercialization of medicines and diagnostics are needed. Priya Sharma of USAID's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact discusses the agency's forays into impact investing, and its recent report, “Investing for Impact: Capitalizing on the emerging landscape for global health financing” in this Q&A.
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- Health Care, Investing
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The Complex Truth of Health Tech: Why Greater Ultrasound Availability Doesn’t Always Benefit Patients
Advances in health technologies have reshaped the lives of communities, families and individuals, undoubtedly contributing to better health outcomes around the world. Yet, despite their potential, new technologies can also add new challenges, risking potential gains in quality, safety or cost. Nowhere is this more evident than in the rapid spread of ultrasound devices, which according to representatives of the NGO Management Sciences for Health, carry a potentially significant downside.
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- Health Care, Technology
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The low-cost device saving newborns in India
Birth asphyxia – lack of oxygen – is the cause of 20% of newborn deaths in India. A simple piece of equipment is helping revive babies and prevent long-term damage.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Sub-Saharan Africa not winning friends in the medical device market
BMI gives the region the lowest average country risk score due to systemic economic and political risks, pressurised aid flows and corruption. Sub-Saharan Africa ranks the least attractive region to commercialise medical devices because of the region’s poor operational environment and barriers to access healthcare, Fitch’s research arm BMI said in a recent report.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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This 20-cent whirligig toy can replace a $1,000 medical centrifuge
Centrifuges, which separate materials in fluids by spinning them at great speed, are found in medical labs worldwide. But a good one could run you a couple grand and, of course, requires electricity — neither of which are things you’re likely to find in a rural clinic in an impoverished country.
- Categories
- Health Care
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