Tag: Healthcare Innovation

Turning lived experience into innovation: How Tamara Tortosa is building Qalyup

After taking part in WE Innovate at Imperial, Tamara Tortosa reflects on how her personal experience of seeking treatment abroad led to the creation of Qalyup – a startup focused on improving access to safer healthcare.

Tamara Tortosa is a nurse and alumna of the Institute of Global Health Innovation‘s MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London. Her journey into entrepreneurship has been shaped by the intersection of lived experience, healthcare and academia. It was further shaped through her participation in WE Innovate, a pre-accelerator programme for women in innovation at the Imperial Enterprise Lab.

In her own words, Tamara reflects on the experience that led her to launch Qalyup.

Understanding antimicrobial resistance: from measurement to better decision-making

A resident doctor reviews a patient late in the day. The presence of an infection is uncertain. The guidelines are long and complex, and time is limited. The consultant wants a decision. The patient is expecting treatment.

Does the doctor prescribe antibiotics or not?

This is the reality of antimicrobial prescribing in hospitals. Decisions are often made under pressure, shaped not only by clinical evidence but by time constraints, hierarchy and patient expectations. These decisions matter. Every unnecessary or inappropriate prescription contributes, in small but cumulative ways, to a much larger global challenge: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

AMR occurs when microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to the drugs used to treat them.