We here at Medgadget are huge fans of the innovative, but low-cost medical devices that undergraduate and graduate school students develop for their senior projects. We applaud the vision to distribute their devices to remote corners of the Earth to improve healthcare worldwide, but always wondered about how developing nations might best go about learning about these lifesaving technologies.
A group of students and researchers from the University of Michigan asked themselves that same question after realizing that no such comprehensive resource existed, and created the Global Health Compendium. The project is an open-source database hosted by popular wiki platform Appropedia, and focuses specifically on useful medical devices for developing countries. That means all the devices in the database are inexpensive and can be useful in countries lacking continuous electricity, replacement parts, clean water, and appropriate training. The devices in the database, approximately 100 so far, can be organized by disease treated, device status, and the region where the device has been tested or targeted.
While the database was created by U-M students and contains many of their technologies, it’s open for all to add to and edit. Know of a device that might be useful in a low-income nation? Click through to the wiki and add your own knowledge!
Link: Global Health Medical Device Compendium…
Article from the University of Michigan: Students build wiki of medical devices designed for low-income countries
