Category: World health

Using pulse oximetry to monitor COVID-19 patients at home

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was riddled with clinical uncertainty. Technologies which could be used to monitor patients at home such as pulse oximeters were widely adopted by patients. But how safe is it to use a pulse oximeter at home when you have COVID-19? In this blog, we share IGHI’s experiences of being part of the COVID-19 Oximetry at Home Programme. This blog was written by Meesha Patel (Communications and Events Officer, IGHI) and Dr Ahmed Alboksmaty (former Research Associate, IGHI).

‘We were born global’ – IGHI’s latest Health Innovation Prize winners share their journey to success

During our final year at Imperial College London, the three of us – Akhilesh, Jeannine and Hansa – came together with the vision to reduce healthcare inequity. Akhilesh was born and raised in London and is of Sri Lankan heritage. Hansa was born in India where she remained well into her teenage years and then immigrated to the UK with her family to finish high school, and has been in the UK for nearly a decade. Jeannine was born and brought up in Pakistan, where she is currently based, and spent four years at Imperial in the UK. So we have always known we wanted to break startup norms by starting off a business in a low-income country and then expanding that to the UK.

Health Innovation Prize winners: Where are they now?

A decade ago, Imperial medical student John Chetwood darted from his Varsity hockey match to try his hand at another competition, with a different prize at stake. It was the inaugural IGHI Health Innovation Prize, giving UK university students the opportunity to win cash towards their global health idea.

John was one of five finalists to face our panel of judges at the Dragon’s Den-style final, and took home the top prize of £2,000 towards his new diagnostic tool for an aggressive type of bile duct cancer.

Since then, teams from all across the country have competed in our annual competition, now in its 10th year and growing, with £10,000 up for grabs for the top team.

Collaborating globally for better healthcare

Healthcare is for all.

Here at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, we know there’s no better way to make progress towards this than working together.

Global collaboration allows us to learn from each other’s experiences and successes and can result in unique solutions which carefully consider cultural and systemic differences.

To mark World Health Day, we’re shining a light on five IGHI projects, where working with international partners has brought tremendous benefits when creating innovative responses to healthcare challenges.

COVID-19 reveals the injustices that underlie health inequities: what are the implications?

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the social injustices that are holding back equity in health and care.

People living in poverty and deprivation are some of the hardest to reach and easiest to leave behind.

This means poor people are absorbing much of the brunt of the pandemic’s impacts, faced with challenges that leave them among the worst affected by the virus and exacerbating the struggles they already carry.

Tackling the global burden of road traffic injuries

According to the Department for Transport, between June 2017-18, 1,770 people lost their lives due to a road traffic collision in Great Britain.

But this isn’t an issue that only affects developed countries. It’s a global problem with many low-and-middle-income countries having even higher numbers of victims. Road traffic incidents can result in the loss of loved ones for families and friends, and for those who do survive, they can mean sustaining life-changing injuries and trauma. These impacts stretch beyond the individual, affecting economies and put pressure on health systems.

How nurses and midwives are essential to achieving universal health coverage

By Nicolette Davies, IGHI’s Head of Operations

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a basic human right. The WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, continues to highlight the importance of UHC by focusing its World Health Day on this topic. Dr Tedros’ top priority is equity for health for all, but how will we achieve the World Health Assembly’s ambitious target of 1 billion more people benefiting from UHC within five years?

Where are the ‘Toyotas of healthcare’ we need for universal health coverage?

By Jonty Roland, IGHI Honorary Research Fellow and Independent Health Systems Consultant.

By dedicating this World Health Day to universal health coverage (UHC), the WHO is continuing to relentlessly bang the drum for ‘health for all’ under its charismatic Director-General. This is a beat that more and more countries are now marching to, with dozens of governments having announced UHC-inspired reforms since Dr Tedros took office two years ago.