Second World Health Organisation’s Global Forum on Medical Devices

The Second World Health Organisation’s Global Forum on Medical Devices took place in Geneva on November 22-24th and gathered together the academia, international organisations, industry and NGOs. While one of the WHO’s strategic objectives is “to ensure improved access, quality and use of medical devices”, during this event the organisation emphasized how important it is to align medical device innovation with the public health need. According to the WHO, there is a mismatch between these two spheres.

      After hearing the stakeholders’ opinion, five insights were listed to help the industry work towards resolving the mismatch: 4 ‘A’s define the agenda to improve access to appropriate medical devices (Availability, Accessibility, Appropriateness, and Affordability); Diagnostics industry contributes to low resource settings beyond Corporate Social Responsibility activities; Bring research and manufacturing to low resource settings; Young entrepreneurs have a good grasp of localisation; Mobile is the way to go.

       To know more about the event, go to  www.who.int/medical_devices/2nd_gfmd/en/ 

References: http://www.medtecheurope.org/blogposts/195/40/blog/2013/12/02/5-WHO-Insights-into-conquering-the-medtech-mismatch

Human Health Framework in the 21st Century

To understand the global framework of the 7 billion citizens’ health, the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) along with other institutions promoted a worldwide project called Global Burden of Disease. Described as “the largest study of its kind and the first such study since 1990”, the project intends to make a list of the main causes of death and disability, and brings together about 500 scientists from 50 nations.

One of the findings shows the decline in children’s mortality rate due to improvements  in infectious disease control with sanitation and vaccines. Another finding is the increase of life expectancy, but, unfortunately, people are spending their  later years in poor health as a result of chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes, etc). The leading causes of death are: Ischemic Heart Diseases, Lower Respiratory Infections, Stroke, Diarrheal Disease, HIV/AIDS.

To check the pdf version of the HSPH infographic, go to: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/files/2013/05/HPHSPRING2013infographic.pdf

References: http://www.mddionline.com/blog/devicetalk/global-burden-disease

Innovation and medicine: a possible connection?

Life expectancy has risen significantly in the last decades throughout the world and medicine has played a key role in this change. However, the scenario for the healthcare industry has also substantially changed, what includes a more intense participation of emerging countries, the development of new technologies and devices, among others.

A challenge that is being faced by many countries is the limited budget for the healthcare system, and in what concerns to it, innovation can make an important contribution. Innovation, research, and  development of new devices, techniques, drugs, and procedures are fundamental for improving the quality of the healthcare sector while cutting its costs. By doing so, we believe that it is possible to make quality of life available to everyone, everywhere.

It’s clear that this goal is not easy to achieve, but if the many actors involved in the healthcare industry (such as policy makers, healthcare manufacturers, hospitals and healthcare professionals, just to mention some) do their best to accomplish it, the situation can improve significantly.

This blog was created driven by the cause of working towards a better and more efficient healthcare system. With that in mind, we will gather information about innovation and medicine, the healthcare industry in Latin American countries, especially in Brazil, the policies and programs pursued by different governments, and so on. We aim not only to provide information, but also to make people question themselves about how they are related to our cause.

Send your comments and contact us if you have any consideration about the subject. It would be great to hear from you!