Collaboration for preliminary design of a mobile health solution for ambulance dispatch in Rwanda

The first 60 minutes after a trauma are described as “the golden hour.” For each minute of prehospital time, the risk of dying increases by 5% (Sampalis et al., 1999). Since 90% of the global burden of injuries occur in low- and middle-income countries and lead to 5.8 million deaths annually, addressing rapid access to emergency services is critical in these settings (Nielsen et al., 2012). In most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there are no formal trauma systems, and many lack organized prehospital care (Nielsen et al., 2012). Emergency medical dispatch and communication systems are a foundational component of emergency medical services (World Health Organization, 2005). Yet there are no established recommendations of creating these systems inLMICs.Rwanda, a country of over 12 million people, is a rapidly developing leader in East Africa. The Ministry of Health of Rwanda established the Service d’Aide Medicale Urgente (SAMU) in 2007, recognizing the need for public emergency medical services. SAMU’s national dispatch center receives roughly 3,000 calls per month through a national 912 hotline. It organizes regional transportation with 260 total ambulances located at hospitals throughout the country and provides prehospital emergency services in the capital city of Kigali with a fleet of 12 ambulances. In the city, each ambulance has a driver, nurse and anesthetist dispatched for every call. Emergency department nursing and anesthetist staff are dispatched from hospitals around the country to respond to regional emergencies. No formal prehospital cadre of the workforce exists although the SAMU staffhave extensive field experience in prehospital care. SAMU has several challenges to rapid prehospital emergency care including lack of addresses beyond the capital city, unclear location data in densely populated areas, complex communication processes with little information about health facility capacity, and no established electronic dispatch system. The average response time for SAMU ambulances was 59 minutes in 2018, but 39% of calls were not completed within the golden hour.

Nurturing next-generation biomedical engineers in Africa: The impact of Innovators’ Summer Schools

The mission of healthcare systems in Africa to deliver compassionate and effective care has been constrained by growing populations, increasing burden of disease, political conflict and limited resources. The impacts of these constraints can be substantially alleviated, and the healthcare services strengthened, through the creation and adoption of affordable, accessible and appropriate biomedical engineering systems and technologies. There is an urgent need for building capacities in biomedical engineering, innovation and entrepreneurship in African countries. The African Biomedical Engineering Consortium has been organising a series of Innovators’ Summer Schools to meet this need by empowering students and researchers with entrepreneurial and innovative skills, and facilitating the design and development of robust, appropriate, and commercially viable medical systems and devices. In this paper, we analyse and discuss the impact of six of these schools held between 2012 and 2017. We used a questionnaire-based survey to collect responses from students who had attended the summer schools. The results of this study demonstrate that the teaching-learning model adopted in the ABEC summer schools was largely effective in promoting biomedical engineering skills, career choices, professional networks and partnerships amongst young African engineers and life scientists who attended the summer schools.

Mechanisms of childhood injury: A novel approach to the terminology

Children have the right to a safe environment and to protection from violence and injury. In addition, state authorities should safeguard the child’s well-being considering the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardian, or other legally responsible individuals. Institutions, facilities and services that are responsible for the of children should observe standards of safety, health, staff suitability and competent supervision. This is enshrined in article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified convention worldwide with 194 signatory states (Jamal, 2014; United Nations [UN], 1989). The WHO-Lancet Commission report released in February 2020 shows that very few countries have attained the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) set out 5 years ago.

Emergency remote teaching for design thinking in health innovation

In March of 2020, South Africa responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic by instituting a full lockdown. This meant that only essential services were allowed to operate, causing schools, universities and workplaces to close. The University of Cape Town was about to complete its first term when this occurred. With campuses closed, students were asked to vacate residences and return home. The university went into emergency remote teaching, with all teaching and learning moving online. Students were provided with the necessary resources to access content via the university learning platform, but strict guidelines were set to ensure that the delivery of content was not data or bandwidth intensive. For our master’s-level course on Health Innovation and Design, this posed many challenges. Health Innovation and Design is part of the curriculum for the MPhil in Health Innovation and the MSc in Biomedical Engineering. It utilises design thinking methodologies as an approach to innovate for improvements in health and wellbeing. The course comprises group-based action learning with a project partner and endeavours to promote engaged scholarship (UCT, 2020) by interacting with constituencies outside the university for public good. For 2020, we had secured the provincial Department of Health as our project partner. Our students were going to work with a team on designing and developing an operating theatre information system for scheduling. We would have had our first hospital visit the week after the university closed its on-campus activities.

Potential of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation for infection prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa

The response to the challenges arising during the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the rapid implementation of innovative technological solutions which have been built on established knowledge and resources. This has been reflected in infection, prevention and control practices (IPC) to minimise the transmission of the disease. In this article, we review ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) as such a technology. We illustrate the way it has traditionally been used in airborne and surface disinfection strategies, and how it has, more recently, been adapted. UVGI has been widely used as an environmental IPC measure against tuberculosis in South Africa, though challenges have been experienced in the implementation of the technology in public healthcare facilities. This has resulted in the development of a knowledge and infrastructure base. We posit that, given the established UVGI resources in South Africa, the technology may be a viable environmental IPC solution for the COVID-19 period and beyond.