Plague Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Plague, including details on bubonic plague, yersinia pestis, infection, types, treatment.

Design of Health Care Technologies for the Developing World.

Malkin RA

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708 robert.malkin@duke.edu.

Approximately 20 years ago, the international community embarked on a project to bring healthcare to everyone by the year 2000 featuring, among other things, technologies that were known to be effective and economical. It was largely a failure. In fact, healthcare deteriorated in many of the target nations. Problems such as public mistrust, lack of spare parts, lack of required consumables, lack of reliable power and water, lack of public infrastructure such as roads, lack of technical expertise, and other problems plague health care technology in the developing world. Biomedical engineers are just beginning to quantify and address the barriers to technology unique to the developing world. This article reviews the barriers, both real and perceived, to the introduction of health care technology with a main focus on health care technology in hospitals. Expected online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering Volume 9 is July 11, 2007. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.

Published 17 May 2007 in Annu Rev Biomed Eng.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Plague Research Today. All Rights Reserved.