Recovered from the original publisher: Kellogg Insight
Many of these deaths are preventable through high-quality hospital-based care. But even routine devices such as syringe pumps and phototherapy lights that are crucial to achieve this level of care—and standard in most U.S. hospitals—are often inaccessible or difficult to use in low- and middle-income countries.
Developing medical devices that are suitable for these regions is no small feat—considering the devices must be affordable, easy to use, and functional in environments that might have extreme temperatures, high levels of dust, or frequent power outages.
To meet this need, a team led by Kellogg sustainability and social impact professors Kara Palamountain and Rebecca Kirby turned to an approach often employed by health agencies. Through field research and input from clinicians, NGOs, manufacturers, and researchers, they developed 15 “target product profiles” that detail the ideal specifications and cost requirements for producing newborn medical devices that are appropriately tailored for low-resource settings.
Since the researchers published the product profiles in 2020, many companies and NGOs have relied on them to create new devices or adapt existing technologies for low-resource settings. To date, thousands of these devices have been purchased and installed in hospitals throughout Africa.
“We have seen product developers adopt these profiles, and others have told us that they have referenced them and made changes to ensure their products meet the requirements,” Palamountain says. “It has shown governments how they can invest in newborn health and save lives.”
More broadly, leaders can use these product profiles, and the process the researchers used to create them, as a blueprint to address shortcomings in many other markets. By bringing together experts from both the supply and demand sides of a given market, “we were able to facilitate a healthy dialogue and bridge the gap where there previously may have been high transaction costs or information gaps,” Kirby says.
Defining needs
For their research, Kirby and Palamountain partnered with UNICEF and NEST360, an international alliance working to reduce preventable newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
The team’s collective goal was to support the United Nations’ plan to reduce newborn mortality rates to fewer than 12 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2030—which would avert potentially millions of deaths.