Do no harm: Some hospitals let a preventable infection kill their patients

A mobile health project in Ethiopia gives any health worker with a smartphone access to the information they need to deal with emergencies during childbirth. Now it's being scaled up to reach 10,000 health workers across Africa and Southeast Asia by 2017.

Undergoing surgery is a stress-inducing prospect for anyone, but children are especially vulnerable to anxiety prior to operations. To avoid using risky anti-anxiety medications on young patients, two anesthesiologists at the Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford have developed creative techniques to distract children from their forthcoming surgeries. They use toys and a unique low-cost video projection system called BERT-Bedside Entertainment Theater.

In India, failing road safety and accident respondent systems have created a nationwide crisis. SaveLife Foundation is addressing these problems head on, through outreach, legal battles, and innovative solutions to ineffective government policy.

A Denver group called Dispatch Health is an urgent care "delivery" service. Instead of requiring the patient to come to the hospital, Dispatch Health come to the patient's home and administers care on site. The group is working to be more economical than a traditional hospital as well, with services from $40-50 for insured patients and a flat rate of $275 for the uninsured.

Access to medical resources improves the effectiveness of health centers. In the village of Fuka, in Nigeria’s Niger State, NGOs such as the RAiSE Foundation and TY Danjuma Foundation have stepped in to support the local Primary Health Centre (PHC). Multiple initiatives, including home visits and the distribution of mosquito nets, have built relationships with the community; the most successful aspects have been the Mama Kit, given free of charge to pregnant women at the PHC, and the donation of an emergency ambulatory tricycle.

After realizing that too many people were calling 911 for issues that were not medical emergencies in Richland, Illinois, a program was launched to act as an intervention strategy. After the start, calls decreased by over 40 percent, which helped make emergency vehicles and responders available for more serious calls.

When Henrico County Fire Department began to respond to calls for people exhibiting signs of coronavirus, they began utilizing recommendations of how best to stay safe. Although restrictive, this new playbook helps emergency responders stay safe by "limiting the number of responders that go into a facility" and encourages nursing homes to bring patients "as close to the ambulance entrance as possible."

Mozambique has a shortage of practicing surgeons, so medical technicians are being trained to fill their roles in various situations, especially in rural locations. Although there are challenges to using this tactic, the technicians-turned-surgeons have similar complication rates as those who are practicing surgeons.

The SimpleVas Vasectomy Clinic is a mobile clinic that travels around to provide easy access to vasectomies by simplifying the entire process. The mobile clinic travels nearly 600 miles around the state every month and has even traveled out to New York City to spread awareness. Through raising awareness of the procedure, the doctor in charge of the clinic now performs about 600 to 700 vasectomies a year.

To aid in postpartum hemorrhage care, the Kisumu Medical and Education Trust distributes uterine balloon tamponade kits that can be used to stop excessive bleeding and prevent death after other measures have failed. The kits have been provided to more than 1,300 healthcare facilities in 23 countries and over 6,000 healthcare workers have been trained to use them.