Appropriate Healthcare Technologies for Low Resource Settings (AHT 2014)
Appropriate Healthcare Technologies for Low Resource Settings (AHT 2014)
17-18 Sept. 2014
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It is estimated that between 15.6 and 19.6 million people are living with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) worldwide, accounting for about one million deaths annually and 60% of Africa's open heart surgeries. As RHD results in heart murmurs that are almost always audible during auscultation, a mobile phone-based automatic auscultation device has the potential to identify those individuals with a high...Show More
Appropriate healthcare technologies for low resource settings: use of m-technology in rural health care and education
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 7
The use of m-phones is rapidly spreading worldwide, reaching also the most isolated and socially marginalised communities. The opportunities it offers in public health are increasingly described in literature, however its potential in the training of, and support to local health workers has been only partially explored, less so its use in combination with innovative active learning approaches. The...Show More
Sanitation-related disease surveillance using community health promoters and mobile phone technology
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Poor utilisation of oral rehydration and zinc therapy for diarrhoeal disease is a major impediment to early and preventative interventions of dehydration and diarrhoea in Guatemala. Improvements in culturally-sensitive public health education, patient screening and healthcare follow-up are necessary to address the growing burden of disease in children under 5 years-of-age. This paper presents a sy...Show More
A multi-sensor monitoring system for objective mental health management in resource constrained environments
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (10)
Neuropsychiatric conditions account for one third of years lost to disability among adults worldwide and in the United Kingdom account for almost half of all health issues for people under the age of 65. At the same time, mental health budgets (especially in low- and middle-income countries) are increasingly stretched denying care to those that need it. The WHO predicts that unipolar depressive di...Show More
Sleepcare: obstructive sleep apnoea screening using mobile health technology
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (3)
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a disorder characterised by pauses in breathing during sleep which lead to deoxygenation. It is associated with increased risk of serious conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke. OSA prevalence ranges from 2-7% throughout the world, but it is estimated that up to 90% of cases are undiagnosed and untreated. OSA is usually diagnosed with a c...Show More
Use of mobile devices for medical services in resource-limited settings: case study in RWANDA
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (1)
The term `mHealth' refers to the various ways mobile devices are being used to facilitate health services. In limited-resource settings mHealth could be the only way to offer services that would otherwise be unavailable. We postulate that adding patient consultation from a distance, using mobile technology for triage, remote diagnostics, and other services that can be offered using mobile technolo...Show More
Smart Handpumps: A Preliminary Data Analysis
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (1)
Groundwater accessed by handpumps is the primary water supply for many people in Africa. This “Smart Water” project considers the study of a region of Kenya where there is significant demand for groundwater, especially among the poor. Some of the engineering aims of this project are to determine if data acquired from accelerometers mounted in hand-pumps can be used to perform three tasks: (i) esti...Show More
WHO technical specifications of medical devices to improve planning, procurement and acquisition process
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
World Health Organization (WHO) technical specifications for priority medical devices have been developed by WHO and WHO technical advisory group, trade associations and United Nations agencies. WHO technical specifications for 74 medical devices are a part of WHO challenges to improve access quality and use of safe and appropriate medical devices through better procurement. This paper describes t...Show More
Smart handpumps: technical aspects of a one-year field trial in rural kenya
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (1)
A team from Oxford University conducted a 12-month `smart handpump` trial in Kenya in 2013, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID), which tested a new maintenance model for rural handpump services. The service was based around the availability of information on handpump usage and functionality, generated by a GSM transmitter installed within the pump handle. For this tria...Show More
Assessing the quality of manual respiratory rate measurements using mobile devices
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
We have designed a mobile device application (RRate), to provide an efficient measurement of respiratory rate with clinically acceptable accuracy. The method is based on analysis of multiple consecutive breath intervals. We investigated in this study the difference in measurement variability between breaths as a representative of recording quality. Respiratory rate of 322 children aged 0 - 12 year...Show More
Human factors perspective on the safety environment of nurse anaesthetist training in Haiti
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 5
This study focuses on the safety of use of medical devices during a training program of nurse anaesthetists in Haiti. Our aim is to describe five observable near misses from the perspective of Human Factors and Ergonomics. The results reveal specific challenges related to the vulnerable learning environment of the nurse anaesthetists. In the discussion the authors elaborate on four ways in which s...Show More
How the thet partnership model is different; looking back at two years of medical equipment partnerships in five african countries
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
This article will describe the Health Partnership model and its application to the capacity building of medical equipment technicians. It will examine the current landscape relating to medical equipment in sub-Saharan Africa and introduce the objectives of the five Medical Equipment Partnership projects The successes and challenges that the five partnerships have described are, in most cases, simi...Show More
An evidence-based approach to developing a training programme for the maintenance of oxygen concentrators in low-resource settings
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 5
Cited by: Papers (1)
Oxygen concentrators are an appropriate and low-cost technology for supplying medical oxygen in low-resource settings; however some maintenance and occasional repairs are required to optimise their longevity. Through a skillmapping analysis based on historical concentrator repair logs, we identified 31 basic technician skills that would be sufficient for the repair of over 90% of observed oxygen c...Show More
A novel approach to biomedical technicians training: a review of in-house mentorship in Ugandan hospitals
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
This paper reports on the approach taken by the Uganda Maternal and Newborn Hub (UMNH) working under the Sustainable Volunteering Project funded by THET. It summarises the progress, successes and challenges of the project 18 months since it started. The main aim was to build capacity in biomedical engineering across 6 health facilities in Uganda. The project mainly covered medical equipment used i...Show More
Technical specifications for rehabilitation devices prescribed for leprosy affected - a review
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Nerve damage in leprosy affected persons causes significant impairments, if not detected and treated early. Various splints are prescribed and provided to patients while they are undergoing treatment for neuritis, reactions and in pre and post operative tendon transfer surgeries. Leprosy deformities limit activities of daily living in patients, and splints are designed and fabricated with customiz...Show More
Design and prototype development of a novel low cost stress radiographic device - laxmeter (an Indo- Africa invention)
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Laxmeter is a knee ligament measurement device invented by the collaborative efforts of a Biomedical Engineer and an orthopaedic surgeon. The device aids in measuring knee ligament laxity at various levels of flexion and at full extension. This paper describes the design features of the laxmeter and also briefs on the cultural restrictions that one must address whilst designing a medical device ta...Show More
A low-cost perinatal monitoring system for use in rural Guatemala
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (1)
While advances in medical care have reduced mortality rates across the globe, perinatal mortality has decreased at a slower pace. This is particularly true of low- and middle-income countries, which contribute by far the largest proportion of perinatal deaths annually. Key reasons for this include lack of systematic screening, lack of early health advice-seeking and robust referral. To address the...Show More
Development and evaluation of prototype virtual reality telemedicine system for asynchronous gait analysis
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Various rehabilitation and diagnostic methods related to musculoskeletal injuries or diseases however, can be challenging to monitor and record over long time periods. Furthermore, patients in remote locations, which represent a substantial proportion, face additional time and cost limitations. Current gait analysis methods, although they provide a very detailed record of the patient's walking cyc...Show More
The principles of good management are timeless; the technology which we deploy to enable good management changes rapidly. In this presentation we consider the relationship between data and management using a case study of healthcare technology management (HTM) to illustrate two main issues. The first is how we keep basic principles in mind in a fast changing world, and link rapidly changing tools ...Show More
Matching the design of anesthesia life-support equipment with environmental challenges
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Surgery is an essential component of health systems. Anesthesia is a necessity for the delivery of safe and effective surgical care. In emerging healthcare systems, anesthesia providers are often the only providers of life support, with the anesthesia machine being the tool most often used for this purpose. The use of anesthesia machines that are not designed to match existing constraints in low-r...Show More
Modeling medical equipment standards for blood banking at different levels of health care system in countries with limited resources: the case of cameroon
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 10
In sub-Saharan Africa countries access to safe and adequate blood products continues to be a major public health concern, in particularly for children and young women suffering respectively from malaria and maternal hemorrhages. The major constraints of blood transfusion practice are the low donation rate and high prevalence of blood-borne diseases like HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, Syphilis and ...Show More
Standardization of clinical laboratories in Africa: a multidisciplinary approach to identify innovative and sustainable technical solutions
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
Cited by: Papers (1)
The present work develops a new, up-to-date, standardized model for African health laboratories. Authors suggest lists of procedures to challenge the major African health problems - HIV/AIDS, malaria, tubercolosis - at each level of pyramidal health system. The more appropriate equipment have been proposed to perform the foreseen techniques; suitability of appliances has been evaluated with regard...Show More
UCHEK: an affordable smartphone based point of care diagnostic system for a low resource medical setup
Publication Year: 2014,Page(s):1 - 4
A point of care diagnosis system comprising of a smartphone and a method for reading the different reagent strips, that performs tests such as routine urinalysis, determining albumin to creatinine ratio and blood sugar tests based on reflectance photometry. uChek uses the camera sensor as an accurate image sensor, with the help of various image processing algorithms, to capture and perform various...Show More
The burden of hypertension-related illness is greatest in lowresource settings. Barriers to its treatment include limited access to accurate Blood Pressure (BP) monitors, data on variation of BP readings over time, and training on how and when to take reliable BP readings. We developed an affordable smartphone-based BP monitor that records the pressure signal from a standard manually-inflated armb...Show More
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