Compendium of Global Health Technologies: Innovative Ideas and Product Concepts

Last year, the World Health Organization published a document titled, “Compendium of New and Emerging Health Technologies“. The document is an interesting resource that provides one page summaries of several technologies that are under development to address major public health concerns in low-resource settings. The compendium includes innovative approaches to a number of maternal and newborn health issues. Read up on the blood collection drape for estimating postpartum blood loss, the mobile phone fetal heart rate monitor, and the infant warmer.

The compendium of new and emerging technologies that address global health concerns has been created as a neutral platform for technologies which are likely to be suitable for use in low-resource settings. It is released to encourage the dialogue between ministries of health, procurement officers, donors, technology developers, manufacturers, clinicians, academics and the general public. In doing so, WHO aims at raising awareness of the pressing need for appropriate design solutions, and for further development and technology dissemination.

 

The compendium 2011 is a first snapshot of several health technologies which might have the potential to improve health outcomes or to offer a solution to an unmet medical need in low-resource settings. The compendium specifically focuses on innovative technologies that are not yet widely available in developing countries, and product concepts under way.

 

Technologies in the compendium are presented in one page summarizing the health problem addressed, the proposed solution and product specifications, based on data and information provided by the developers of the technologies concerned.

Take a look at the full document here.