Articles
Field reports, research, and perspectives on delivering diagnostics where they are needed most.
Bridging the Healthcare Gap: The Story Behind GREEN Medical Development
GREEN Medical Development was founded after its co-founders witnessed first-hand the extreme barriers to basic diagnostics in West Africa, where a family walked six days simply to reach a chest X-ray facility. The organization responds by delivering low-cost, high-impact point-of-care diagnostic solutions, including portable ultrasound and rapid laboratory platforms, directly into remote and resource-limited communities, paired with structured training developed in partnership with Sheba Medical Center.
Read articlePoint-of-Care Ultrasound (PoCUS) and Its Potential to Advance Patient Care in Low-Resource Settings and Conflict Zones
Point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) is used by health care professionals of various specialties worldwide, with excellent results demonstrating significant potential to advance patient care. However, in low resource areas of the world, where other imaging modalities are scarce and the potential of handheld pocket-sized PoCUS devices with great versatility and increasing affordability seems most significant, its use is far from being widespread. In this report, our group of Chadian, Israeli, and Canadian physicians with experience in rural, military, and conflict zone medical aid, discusses the barriers to the implementation of PoCUS in low resource areas and offers potential solutions.
Read articlePoint of Care Diagnostics in Resource-Limited Settings: A Review of the Present and Future of PoC in Its Most Needed Environment
Point of care (PoC) diagnostics hold particular promise for resource-limited settings, where a central laboratory may be hours away and PoC may be the only viable route to diagnosis. This review maps the bottlenecks that stop promising PoC research from reaching patients in low-income countries, tracing the entire value chain from fundamental research and funding, through prototype design philosophy and regulation, to market penetration, distribution, and actual use at the bedside. Rather than focusing on any single stage, the authors argue the field needs coordinated change across research priorities, economic incentives, training, supply chains, and healthcare-system integration, because a perfectly engineered device still fails if any link in that chain breaks.
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