Free Global Health Technology Essay Sample
Because of financial constraints faced by the developing countries, policymakers in the health sector are seeing the need to develop available health technologies for the global health development. This will cushion the middle class and the low class countries against exploitation from the cartels in the health sector. Developing these health technologies requires modern engineering techniques that are stylish, uncomplicated, field-tested, and custom-made to suit the prevailing medical situations. The technology must succeed in setting out the unique designs to address the challenges and burdens of illness, which characterize the global world. To meet the practical nature of the global healthy technology, the developing nations should identify the real needs of the society targeted by the technology. This will provide the necessary information to the institutions providing the global health and be in a position to address the issues of global health.
Definition of the Concept
Boston has become a major hub for biomedical invention and innovation for global health. Institutions in the fields of engineering and medicine have collaborated with Boston to be in a position to generate blueprint and inventions, which have an impact on research in global health. With this great partnership with medical institutions in Boston, the Global Health Technology has become a reality. Global Health Technologies is the realistic applications of scientific approaches that are efficient and stable in their planned care delivery settings. To this context, the term technology is the autonomous indication of the global health, which is a guideline, or policy that will only oversee the implementation of the global health technology.
The practical nature of the Global Health Technology balances the very attributes of the collaborative research, teamwork and the success of the project is primarily determined by the user to foster the development of the innovative technologies. In order to oversee and advance research and implementation of the Global Health Technology assortment, there is the technical assistance from the collaborators. Among the bodies, which have collaborated with Global Health Technologies are the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology’s (CIMIT) and the Center for Global Health in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
Design Innovation Practices
The collaborative design between the Global Health Technology and partners is entirely that of teamwork. The multi-institutional partnership aims at the low and middle class countries’ health care in sustenance and education with medical technologies and guidance. The Center for Integration of Medical and Innovative Technologies (CIMIT) at General Hospital Innovation (GHI) in Massachusetts and the Center for Global Health at the Massachusetts General Hospital are currently in Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Cambodia. They are carrying out awareness to about 500 midwives in the Aceh province, and the awareness is focusing at infants and women. This health problem with infants and women was because of Asian Tsunami and the previous civil war, which hit the Asian continent in 2005. The training of the midwives involves equipping them with knowledge of how to use the new device during the process of the delivery. The group has already experimented to the midwives, the use of the delivery device in Ethiopia. The institution also continues during their field practice with the device and co-develops medical equipment, for example, the Coolcomply and Car Part Incubator, which is used to monitor the temperature of the patient while undergoing medication. The purpose of the training and technologies is to enhance provision of medical services where human resources are not available.
Across River Charles, the Innovation in International Health at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (IIH@MIT) collaboration with CIMIT as multi-institutions has invented the use of low-cost material devices, which brought the multidisciplinary groups jointly in Skunkworks ( environment is difficult to work on) setting. Through the example of a small model of interdisciplinary groups, the IIH enhances the medical technology design for the middle and low- income earners. The IIH is employing the sophisticated technology of the use of prototyping. The group also utilizes the latest advancement in the field of engineering designs to develop the early-phase examples of prototypes
The advancement of technology by the IIH heavily depends on network feedback from the community on the device stereotype. The question on functionality and design of the device prototype, which is not answered in the Cambridge lab, is addressed by the IIH through the structural and functional questions. The Medical Education Design and Invention Kits is one of the many projects in their portfolio that aims at enabling all the medical practitioners to develop a swift model of mere opinions for the mechanism solutions. The Medical Education Design and Innovation Kit works to allow physicians and nurses in low and middle income class (LMIC) to innovate rapid prototypes for their ideas for device solutions to global health problems.
In order to create a favorable environment for investing time in high-risk and early stage technologies, it is important to embrace the combination of the communal and the interdisciplinary networking. In addition, it is important to be aware that finance is one of the many prototypes needed in inventing a solution that will save many lives at different steps of deployment .The inventions include development of paper micro fluidic diagnosis for the population in remote places ,and low-cost incubators for detecting rapid tuberculosis infection.. The Global Health Technology is already covering more than 15 developing countries. This puts the organization in a better position to speed up the medical expertise transfers and develop prototype. This will enable the innovators them to concentrate on high influence technology.
Co-Creation
To guarantee success in solving issues, which threaten the global health, appropriate technology is developed in the Global Health Technology. Appropriate technology takes in the needs of the user of the technology and puts it inconsideration. Through the co-creation model, the innovators constantly exchange vital information regarding the development of the solutions with the global health. Innovators are constantly encouraged to develop solutions and as they are treated like any other individual. Because of motivation, innovators can be drawn ranging from medical practitioners in Boston to a shoe repair in Indonesia so that they can participate in providing ideas useful in innovation. The technology creates an environment, which favors teamwork among the innovators.
Challenges of Global Health Technology
With the current world population being over 6.9 billion, more than half of the population lives on less than a dollar per day. This illustrates the huge economic gap that exists between those who can access healthcare against those who cannot access. Statistics indicate that women in the developing world are 300 times more likely to die compared to women in developed nations. These deaths can be prevented from occurring if the right technical innovations are made. Another challenge in developing medical devices is the medical hi-tech transfer devices. The devices that are from welfare countries transported to the developing countries are outdated or non-functional .
Another problem with device transfer is the quality. The global manufacturers in the production of medical equipment produce cheap and sub-standardized equipment. Due to lack of analog technology, the devices bring no success to development of technology .Another challenge arises in the appropriate technology where there are accidental spin-offs from the well- developed countries to the third world countries. These situations lead to the trickle up.
Recommendation for Global Health Technology
There should be a constant training on the use of medical devices, which will intrigue the sense of professionalism. This will encourage the intake of new protocols on medical practices. Secondly, there should be a regular prototyping to enrich the innovators with experience rather than with paperwork. Thirdly, there is the need of sharing the scarce resources within the innovation environment. In addition, all records are stored at a centralized database that is accessible to all the health providers in the country. Physicians can readily access information on patients from a computer terminal rather than having to call .Perhaps may be the next of kin or the patient’s doctor who might be in another state.
The cost in terms of storage, human errors, and human resource has decreased since. There are no manual records to be stored; the errors associated with scheduling of visits are hardly occurring and the cost of human resource in terms of remuneration, sick-offs, and annual leaves are removed from the equation. Innovators should embrace the art of teamwork. The team has diverse ideas and opinions, which when tapped can lead to the success of the Global Health Technology. Lastly, the group should use the challenges and change them into opportunities to the members of the innovation.
Advantages and disadvantages of global health
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
1.Assist to save the lives which could been lost easily through preventable deaths |
1. Difficult to implement due to scarce resources. |
2.Cheap as it uses locally available materials |
2. Difficult in getting of funds for developing prototypes. |
3. Global health embraces teamwork, which results to effective innovation. |
3. Not easy to get innovators who can volunteer. |
Conclusion
The Global Health Technology, through its activities can change lives of many people who cannot access medical facilities due to hard economic times or conditions. These technologies have not been properly utilized or even initiated. A great part of failure in innovations is due to poor quality of medical devices, which are designed to solve settings with scarce resources .The innovators should ensure that they embrace the technology outcome expansion through the co-creation with the aim of utilizing the feedback by from the users. The element of effectiveness and sustainability of the innovation should be incorporated into the development of the system to maximize the intended environment. There is a need to develop the prototypes like the incubators, which enables the physicians to detect tuberculosis .The innovation of medical devices should meet the demands of the target population. Partnerships and co-creation create opportunities to any individual from different field of studies.