Global

Health will be one of the main topics at this year’s World Economic Forum. It is encouraging to see that the world leaders are recognising that health is a prerequisite for well-being and economic growth. And as a large contributor to health, our industry can play an important role in ensuring that people live longer active lives and contribute to this economic growth.
One look at the rough outline of the different sessions and there are at least seven sessions that are of particular interest.

Think of innovation in health and many people conjure up images of men and women in white coats – surrounded by coloured test tubes crouched over microscopes in sterile laboratories – developing intricate vaccines or other miracle cures. Yet these tightly controlled, high cost, industrial scale operations are only one end of a very long scale. In the developing world at least, we’re increasingly witnessing some of the more interesting, impactful healthcare innovations coming from lone entrepreneurs and problem solvers. Large multinationals just don’t operate in what can often be seen as the ‘scrappy long tail’ of social innovation. Not only are few present in these markets, many just don’t understand them – or even worse they don’t understand why they need to be in them.

One central theme revolved around the Second World Health Organisation’s Global Forum on Medical Devices – the WHO recognises medical devices as an investment and not a cost. However, there is a mismatch between innovation of medical devices and public health needs.  677 participants from 108 countries took their pick from 28 workshops and 4 plenary sessions. Held on November 22-24^th in Geneva, the event enabled academia, international organisations, industry and NGOs to gain insight from 159 presentations, 144 posters (one of which was presented by EDMA on Lab Tests Online), and 8 films. 

Consider the cell phone.
As an engine of change, it is a romantically disruptive one, a technology that crisscrosses borders and thrives on connection in all its forms – to networks, to people, to the world. Already, in areas of Africa and India, mobile phones play every part at once, bankers and pharmacists and secretaries rolled into one. In developing countries, the path of least resistance to modernization is flung up one phone tower at a time. They have taken a platform we have spent on Angry Birds and advertisements, and woven a way of life.

Imagine walking for most of the day to get to the health center nearest your community, carrying your young child who is very ill. When you arrive, the doctor takes a sample from your child to perform a diagnostic test. You then learn that it will take a month or more to receive the results, as only a specialised laboratory can perform the necessary test to obtain a diagnosis. This sort of unnecessary delay can be the difference between life and death. It is still, nevertheless, the reality in many countries, especially in limited resource settings where diagnostic testing is centralised, and most patients live far from testing sites.

Today is a very exciting day for us at Lab Tests Online – UK.  We are launching our free app at the Royal College of Pathologists in London. The app is a continuation of the site, if you will, for people on the go! It provides useful information on laboratory tests, conditions and wellness (otherwise known as screening). So yeah there’s an app for that! Versions are available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices, so download it NOW!

Infectious diseases remain a source of concern in the EU due to the emergence of new resistance to anti-infective drugs. The EU is supporting the deployment of innovative solutions in low resource settings in the world with the aim to help the local populations avoid the emergence of new resistance that can spread across borders.

Just Dance. People love dancing, whether it be for fun, as a workout or professionally as a dancer performing choreographies with great passion in front of an audience. This passion has resulted in a hip surgery for Lady Gaga, the American singer-songwriter known for such hits as Bad Romance, Poker Face, and – appropriately – Just Dance. For fans all over the world, the hip fracture was a synonym for cancelled concerts and missed opportunities to meet their idol. But why did this happen so suddenly? Why did we not hear about her problems earlier?

When Philippe Croizon broke his first world record by swimming across all four intercontinental channels in August 2012 he declared “I’ve got no big challenges in the near future but “never say never””. Here we are, only a few months later with yet another great achievement…

And what an achievement! As a big sports fan I have been trying to follow exemplary sportsmen, especially those whose lives have intersected with medical technology.