Never has the need to invent been more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being a health crisis, it needs to be viewed from all angles in order to control and, if possible, resolve it.
Innovations in Healthcare is a company committed to promoting innovators and the global community in ways of addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. It supports and highlights the work its network of innovators are doing to scale and curate promising innovations. The MD, Krishna Udayakumar, mentors 100 healthcare innovators globally, and therefore envisages healthcare innovation as a possible solution to address challenges COVID-19 poses in crucial areas: population and data surveillance, communications, testing, vaccines, and therapeutics and of course, the supply chain.
Udayakumar recently hosted a webinar where five I innovators addressed the question — How does the World Respond to COVID-19, and What is my Role?
The panelists, all working in low- and middle-income countries globally, explored personal experiences they have had with coronavirus and the impact the disease has had on their communities. They also shared how the lessons they have learned from dealing with COVID-19 are informed by their experiences with diseases like Ebola, and why this makes them optimistic.
Innovations include service delivery platforms based in the United States but serving globally to digital COVID-19 screening and tools that monitor disease in order to address the main challenges brought about by the pandemic or report regional trends, some of these innovations are novel, but some have been tried and tested by outbreaks in the past, namely Ebola, TB, HIV and they track covid19 cases illuminate response, preparedness, and also tracking of outcomes. This informs the ministries of health as they monitor the real-time spread of the pandemic in their countries. In India, programs targeting the improvement of vulnerable urban children, women, and adolescents’ healthcare have utilized phones and the internet to educate this group on the eradication of disease spread. The same program has innovated activities and games to engage the children indoors and avoid interaction with other children to contain the spread. In Rwanda, a company named health builders provides the country’s health ministry with personal protective equipment.
Many other innovators globally continue to creatively seek practical approaches that help cope with the situation and solve real-time problems caused by the pandemic.