Northwestern University’s http://globalhealth.northwestern.edu Center for Global Health is designing training programs in biomedical engineering to help identify critical healthcare needs. The goal is to design and launch products and devices to use for diagnostics, therapeutic interventions and for disease monitoring.in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC).
To accomplish goals to help LMICs, a research program was initiated in 2013 through the Center for Global Health titled “Developing Innovative Interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering Programs in Africa”. The award amount of $220,952 will be ongoing until 2018.
The overall goal is to provide tools in LMICs, establish new training programs in biomedical engineering in Africa, train biomedical engineers and medical doctors on how to evaluate newly developed testing and treatment products, and train post graduates from business schools to scale up development in order to launch new products in LMICs.
The plan is to develop healthcare technologies that will include any innovation that improves health outcomes and is cost effective including novel point-of-care medical diagnostic devices, therapeutic interventions, information systems, and telemedicine diagnostics to be used through mobile phones.
The University is working with LMIC partners that includes the University of Cape Town www.uct.ac.za in South Africa, University of Ibadan http://ui.edu.ng, and Lagos University in Nigeria www.www.unilag.edu.ng, the University of Bamako in Mali http://ubamako.ml, and the University of Nairobi in Kenya www.uonbi.ac.ke.
For more information contact Robert L Murphy MD Director of the Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Global Health at Northwestern University at r-murphy@northwestern.edu or call (312) 503-9000.