Dateline: February 2012 Location: MIT Sloan by Mary Anito In class last week we had the pleasure of talking to some of the leaders in the global health delivery space. Along with Ophelia Dahl (from Partners in Health; see another ghdLAB post on her) and and Marty Collier (from the Access Project in Rwanda), we were joined […] Continue Reading
Blog post by Alice Hartley “Today we can see that in the poorest places, only integrated approaches—those that take into account water, sanitation, economic opportunity, education and infrastructure along with health—sustainably and adequately address public health needs…Figuring out how to bring the complex matrix of development together requires systems knowledge, financing, and superb management.” –Josh […] Continue Reading
Dateline: November 2011 Location: MIT Sloan by MIT Sloan student David Xie Summary This essay reflects on the strength, outcome and challenges associated with the Mayo Clinic’s design thinking approach to improving healthcare delivery, and discusses the merit of applying design thinking towards improving global healthcare delivery especially in resource poor settings. The essay concludes by […] Continue Reading
We were lucky enough to have Jose Colucci, IDEO’s Health and Wellness lead in Boston, join our class yesterday for an interactive workshop on design thinking and human centered design. We’ve spent much time this semester looking at different business models and evaluating the care delivery value chain (see this great article for an example of applying value chain […] Continue Reading
We looked at Riders for Health for the third time this year, which we here at MIT always enjoy doing. And this time were lucky enough to get a call into class from Lakshmi Karan, the organization’s Global Strategy Director. What makes the Riders model work? Our past blog posts present some ideas (start with […] Continue Reading
Is surgery beyond the reach of the world’s poor? And how do we reconcile the issues involved with increasing access to surgery with the widespread need for water and sanitation? A case example inspired by Dr. Robert Riviello, trauma and acute care general surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, gave us some big questions to […] Continue Reading
So, on Halloween 2011, the seven billionth person in the world was born–China or India the most likely birthplace. In a New York Times column this summer, Thomas Friedman laid out his thoughts on the cost us all of living with so many billions of other people: “The Earth is Full”. It makes sobering reading. A recent news story […] Continue Reading
Mind, hand, management and health care How global health delivery connects to MIT Sloan’s mission Modern medicine could reduce disease greatly, yet fails to reach millions. Innovations in management may help address the constraints. We focus on organizations on the front lines of care delivery, studying the issues, interacting with experts, and connecting students with real-world […] Continue Reading
A brand-new special issue of BMC International Health and Human Rights features a special collection on Health innovation in sub-Saharan Africa. The papers present examples from Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda of how science and technology innovations are connected to entrepreneurship and institutions in specific examples. The very first article takes […] Continue Reading
Can we make process, management, and systems a bit less dreary and a bit more glam? So, we’re at MIT, where technology is in the air, and I have my own personal obsessions with technology–witness my (often flawed) forays into twitter, delicious, and too many mobile phones, along with plenty of other tech tools. Source: http://www.ghtcoalition.org/diagnostics.php […] Continue Reading
Can franchises deliver better and more health care cost-effectively in places where current system fall short, and along the way equip a cadre of microentrepeneurs to spur economic development? We looked at the issues again this year: first, to explore what franchising entails, next, to study one chain of franchise clinic-pharmacies operating in Kenya and Rwanda, […] Continue Reading
We looked at Riders for Health last year and were taken with their undeniable coolness as well as the focus and completeness of their operational model. Check out this discussion and related links. Since then, a new study and articles have come out: here’s Fueling Growth by Sonali Rammohan in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2010: Riders for […] Continue Reading
the need Every day, physicians, medical staff, community workers and their colleagues wrestle with the challenge of delivering healthcare more efficiently and effectively to those who most need it. Many agree on the need for innovation in care delivery models, programs and clinical and back-room operations. Enterprises could benefit from new approaches to management, logistics, […] Continue Reading
What have we learned from two years, 100 students, and 25 G-Lab GHD projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and Malawi? That we are lucky to partner with amazing leaders and organizations to learn first-hand about the needs and opportunities for delivering health care in resource-limited settings. That in some […] Continue Reading
Written by Ellen and the rest of the MIT Sloan Baobab Team Our G Lab project revolved around looking at the benefits of implementing an electronic data system in healthcare clinics in Malawi. Our partner organization,Baobab Health Partnership, developed a touchscreen appliance that can be used both for patient registration and as a clinical support […] Continue Reading
