The HopeAssist project aims to develop a smartphone based decision support system using the WHO Mental Health Guidelines (mhGAP), that will facilitate General Physicians working in low resource settings, in making better diagnosis and treatment choices for depression patients. The system also includes a Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service that will allow patients to complete preliminary screening questionnaire on the phone at no cost. The pilot project is proposed for rolled out to 10 Physicians in Peshawar (Pakistan), to be tested over a period of 12 months. Based on conservative estimates, 5,500 patients suffering from depression will directly benefit from this pilot project in 08 months of service in this pilot project.
Post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) remains the leading cause of maternal death globally despite the significant increase in the number of available interventions. Marked peaks of mortality are recorded more in low resource countries. Team Medzyn’s design solution is a first aid device whose key role is to preserve the mother’s life during referrals or transportation to the health facility. The inflatable first aid haemorrhage belt will be able to stem the bleeding of a haemorrhaging mother. The design is based on the manual external aortic compression technique by a qualified attendant. The belt is to be strapped around the mother as a first aid device to reduce the blood loss and thus increasing the chances of maternal survival. The overall aim is to create an efficient and safe device that is affordable to be adopted in low resource settings as a leading lifesaving first aid.
mDex is a smartphone based, low cost, reusable, near-instant point of care diagnostic tool aimed at increasing access to sickle cell diagnostic services in low-resourced areas.This equips medical personnel with no hematology skills to diagnose the sickle cell disease (SCD) accurately to facilitate early diagnosis. Diagnostic tests for SCD are expensive and time-consuming and without “proof” of disease, patients may not be able to receive the care they need in a timely manner. mDex bridges the knowledge gap and the feedback loop between the time of testing and results.
Medicinal oxygen increases life expectancy in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the 4th leading cause of death globally. Blood oxygen saturation monitoring is the gold standard for treatment of respiratory illnesses, without knowing oxygen levels, providers cannot treat patients cost effectively. KNO2, a low-cost wrist device that monitors oxygen accurately, would replace today’s cumbersome and costly monitors. KNO2 encourages patients to monitor symptoms by continuously recording them, allowing doctors to quantitatively evaluate disease progression and allowing patients to better understand disease triggers with the device’s flag-buzzing system, reducing emergency room visits. In Latin America, most governments cover COPD patients with public insurance. The team plans to partner with the public sector to include KNO2 in COPD health packages. They will perform preliminary testing in Colombia, followed by secondary testing in Perú. This project will allow 80 million people to reduce preventable morbidity and mortality, all for $25 per unit.
Sepsis is a life-threatening complication caused by an overwhelming immune response to bloodstream infections. However, by recognizing certain vital sign indicators, one can take early action to significantly reduce sepsis-associated mortality. In fact, early sepsis therapy programs using simple, cost-effective treatments have reduced relative risk of sepsis mortality by 45%. Unfortunately, many low resource hospitals are overworked and understaffed, and need more assistance with monitoring at-risk patients. The lack of functional vital signs monitoring equipment further compounds this insufficiency. Consequently, sepsis remains an enormous problem for low resource settings. To address this issue, Team Vitalize is developing a low-cost, wireless vital signs monitoring device that can detect early onset of sepsis and alert the appropriate healthcare provider. This diagnostic tool has the power to save hundreds of thousands of lives and significantly improve quality of care in resource-limited hospitals.
MedServe is Teach for America for healthcare. It aims to create a generation of passionate advocates for health equity in every zip code. To do so, it operates a two-year community service fellowship in rural and underserved community primary care for young people between college and medical school. MedServe Fellows are selected for having a spark of interest and high potential for future primary care service. Our Fellows are more likely to come from medically underserved communities than average medical school applicant. During their two years in MedServe, this spark of interest is ignited through a dual role where Fellows spend half of their time gaining vital clinical experience for their future application to graduate school and half of their time conducting community-facing work that shows the impact of high-quality primary care on entire communities. Our organization supports this experience through up-front Fellow training and ongoing professional development support.
The goal of this project is to develop a safe, inexpensive, and reliable self-diagnostic tool for the early detection of preeclampsia that can be accessible to pregnant women in low-resource settings, thereby reducing the detrimental health impacts of undiagnosed preeclampsia and eclampsia. The earliest indicators for developing preeclampsia are dramatically increased levels of biomarkers activin A and inhibin A in a woman’s urine. The self-diagnostic tool will be a urine strip created by adapting lateral flow assay technology to detect the levels of activin A and inhibin A in the urine of pregnant women. The test will inform the woman if she is developing preeclampsia and needs to seek medical care before her symptoms become severe and endanger the life of her and her unborn child.
In 2011, only 18.8% of US mothers reached the six-month exclusive breastfeeding goal set by the World Health Organization. If 90% of mothers breastfed for the recommended six months, the US would save $13 billion per year. Breast massage can improve, prevent, or alleviate the most common breastfeeding problems and prolong breastfeeding duration. The purpose of the Breast Massage Knowledge Bank (BMKB) is to identify and match unique BMTs to specific breastfeeding problems and breast shapes/sizes. The sixteen BMTs identified in academic literature will serve as the baseline from which the BMKB will grow. The platform allows for feedback collection from breastfeeding experts and mothers. This data is analyzed to develop evidence-based education tools for diverse populations of parents and providers. LiquidGoldConcept is the only research- driven, for-profit company (with a sustainable, non-advertisement based revenue model) creating evidence-based, tailored breast massage videos focused on educating parents and health providers.
SkinIQ is developing a mobile software platform and algorithm for the long-term surveillance and diagnosis of potentially cancerous skin lesions. At the moment, even the best methods of diagnosis still lack the sensitivity and specificity needed to accurately classify and distinguish one type of skin lesion from another. Furthermore, there has yet to be a widely accepted tool that connects patients across the world to their own general practitioners and dermatologists in a cost effective and innovative way. SkinIQ solves this problem using a proprietary deep-learning algorithm trained on thousands of images that tracks and tags dangerous skin lesions for doctors and patients. Additionally, SkinIQ uses non-invasive molecular profiling to sequence moles that have been tagged as concerning. SkinIQ hopes to provide a highly accurate diagnostic tool and platform that will decrease discrepancies in the diagnosis of melanoma and pervasive skin diseases.
