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Most rural health institutions in Nigeria are poorly staffed and primary postpartum haemorrhage is a major cause of maternal mortality. Regular monitoring of newly delivered mothers and administration of drugs during the night shift may not be readily assured. In order to aid the midwives, nurses and relations of patients in monitoring newly delivered mothers and administration of medications at night,...
The management of medical equipment is acknowledged to be many-faceted. Maintenance is one aspect, but the field often focusses on resourcing technical staff for the purpose. We present here a new course for user (or `first-line') maintenance of medical equipment. It is hoped that the course material can be adapted for use in settings other than the original Indian environment.
This paper will describe the experiences and setbacks thus far in developing a new initiative for supporting the advancement of local health technology management (HTM) skills in a developing country, specifically Ghana. Two workshops on Health Technology Management, held in Ghana in 2009, in which the faculty were mostly Canadians, marked the starting point of the relationship. It was realized after...
Anaemia is common in clinical practice in tropical Africa where electric haematocrict centrifuges are expensive and electricity from the national grid is unreliable. Two models of manual haematocrit centrifuge have been developed to help in the successful management of patients with anaemia in the tropics.
The Developing World Healthcare Technology Laboratory (DHTLab) at Duke University recently developed the first evidence-based approach to training technicians to repair and maintain medical equipment in resource-poor settings, the BTA program. In this paper we describe a matched-pair study of hospitals with and without a BTA trained technician in Rwanda. Hospitals without a BTA trained technician...
Rehabilitation services are reduced in developing countries such as in Mexico. Intervention therapy is limited and many times not available to low income patients. Lack of technology in the rehabilitation areas in Mexico focuses therapies on manual exercises with one therapist giving treatment to one patient at a time, limiting the resources available. We present the development of a low cost Gymnasium...
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. New diagnoses continue to rise along with the significance of the disease. Changing lifestyles lead to a reduction in physical activity and increase in obesity rates. As a result the costs for healthcare provision are rising. Along with education and healthier lifestyle choices, self monitoring of glucose levels can help keep...
Training technicians on Healthcare Technology Management has a proven importance, but buy-in from the national governing bodies is crucial for successful implementation. Engineering World Health trains BMETs in Rwanda to improve HTM practices. This paper describes on the ground experiences.
The sharing of expertise across countries to support development has a strong history but in many senses the methods traditionally used for this purpose are now inefficient. The emergence of virtual technologies and easy use collaboration software tools opens up many new options. E-learning is the most efficient and effective means for outreach and bringing international expertise to developing countries...
The development and curriculum content of a training course for Biomedical Engineering Assistant Technicians is described. The course is now being run under the auspices of the National Health Training Centre, Nepal. Over 120 participants, mostly from small rural hospitals, have successfully completed the course.
This work presents the actual condition of medical equipment in rural areas of Mexico's largest state, Chihuahua. Interviews and visits were conducted with medical and administrative personnel in two rural hospitals that mostly serve the Tarahumara indigenous community. The interviews were conducted to gain a better understanding of the conditions of the clinics and identify areas of opportunity to...
The Developing World Healthcare Technology Laboratory (DHTLab) at Duke University has developed a comprehensive, open-source biomedical equipment technician's (BMET) library. In this work we experimented with making the DHTLab BMET library and medical equipment manuals available via electronic reader (e-reader). In this paper we describe an early deployment of e-readers to Haiti. The results were...
Among other programs intended to improve the access to healthcare technology in hospitals of developing countries, Engineering World Health (EWH) runs the Appropriate Technology Development Hub. It consists of a network of university-based chapters where students work in conjunction with EWH to identify the need for, develop and bring innovative, student-designed biomedical technologies to resource-poor...
The use of cost-effective and safe mobile healthcare solutions using innovative sources of energy can go a long way to increase access and use of family planning services in remote and low-resource settings.
Medical equipment is usually designed to operate in a relatively constant environment, with stable, controlled temperatures and humidity, dust and insect free conditions, uninterrupted electrical supply and unlimited medical consumables. This ideal environment also includes expert users, advanced technical support and reserve equipment capacity. Change these basic fundamental conditions, for example...
The diagnosis of diseases in developing countries remains a significant challenge. Here, we report on the design and development of a novel diagnostic device for use in the developing world. Patient diagnosis will be based on urine samples analysed by low cost chemiresistor sensor arrays to generate a metabolomic profile with mobile phone technology being utilised as the user interface for the healthcare...
The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), with support from Accenture Development Partnerships, has embarked on a journey to increase the impact and effectiveness of donations of surplus medical supplies and equipment to support health care delivery within the developing world. CHA has researched the current landscape for medical surplus donation by U.S.-based hospitals and identified...
Biomedical engineers and technicians are of such shortage in Uganda that large quantities of equipment lay unused, presumed non-working or unusable. However, with fully trained medical engineers / technicians, a large percentage of this equipment could be made working. By working with Kyambogo University, Amalthea Trust has developed a BMET training Diploma that will allow the University to train...
Adherence to HIV care and treatment is the main challenge in following up HIV-infected patients in Mozambique. Similarly, adherence to prevention of mother to child transmission programmes is the main challenge in eliminating paediatric AIDS. Despite various interventions to improve patient adherence in Mozambique, the number of patients defaulting from treatment is still increasing. To address this...
The Marie Stopes International (MSI) tubal ligation kit has not only helped to increase efficiency of providing female sterilisation services, but also improves the safety and standardisation of the MSI tubal ligation procedure.
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