Answers to the Questions about PATH

[Annelies Tjebbes]

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Annelies Tjebbes

Chapter President, Engineers Without Borders UBC Chapter
Biomedical Electrical Engineering Student, UBC

(c) 604-561-7237

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PATH Events <eve...@path.org>
Date: Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 3:06 PM
Subject: RE: Questions from a Public Health Journal Club
To: Annelies Tjebbes <annelie...@ewb.ca>


Hi Annelies,

I can try to answer some of your questions below, I may not be the best person to speak to these, but I've included links to resources that tell more about the product development process. I would suggest sharing the resouces I've linked as they speak better to your questions than I can.

Hope this is helpful.

Karina

________________________________
From: anneli...@gmail.com [anneli...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Annelies Tjebbes [annelie...@ewb.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 10:42 PM
To: PATH Events
Subject: Questions from a Public Health Journal Club

Hi Karina,

I hope you're doing well.  As well as my work with Engineers Without Borders, I am also a member of the UBC Public Health Journal Club and recently presented an article called "Appropriate medical technology for perinatal care in low-resource countries" that speaks a lot about PATH's work. I have attached the article in this email.

From this discussion arose a bunch of questions about PATH that I would love to have answered and be able to share these answers with the group.  If you are able to do so yourself that would be great, or if you can pass these questions on to someone who could help me out I would really appreciate that.

Here are the questions that we have:

Who pays for the devices that are developed?

Devices are developed in partnerships with funding grants from large foundations, governments, or in partnership with the private sector. Our annual report for 2009 breaks down our finances: http://www.path.org/annual-report/2009/finances.php/.
We do not do any manufacturing of devices in house, nor do we pay for devices on a sustained basis. The technologies we develop are transferred to partners who then take on manufacturing, and are developed so country governmental health systems are able to afford to buy the devices themselves so they are sustainable in their usage. Our product introduction framework speaks more to this. http://www.path.org/publications/detail.php?i=1444.

- How does PATH make initial connections with communities they hope to work in, and how does PATH identify potential projects?

That’s a hard one to answer as it varies so much. Sometimes our leadership makes connections through partnering organizations, networking, or as one of our vice president’s recently said “meeting someone in an airport.” We do all our work in partnership with other organizations. We aren’t on the ground providing primary care, we work with established partners who are already in the communities that can benefit from our expertise, so we rarely if ever are making new connections ourselves in communities, and instead this happens through established partners, local government and community leaders.

- How is technology accepted in these communities?  Are people usually completely receptive to PATH's work?

It depends wholly on the product or intervention. We keep end users in mind from the very start of our projects. On every program team there is an expert  that knows the region that project is targeting and they provide insight into what is culturally and market appropriate in the areas we are working in, that way we aren’t working on projects that won’t be well received.

- Does PATH have a list of identified medical needs for the developing world, and if so, is this list publicly available? (What level of understanding does PATH have of the needs of developing countries)?

Not formally that I’ve ever seen.
The Millennium Development Goals are the best example of global health community as a whole coming together to identify the most pressing needs.http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/.

- Where do materials for manufacture in other countries come from?  Who is actually manufacturing the devices?

It depends on the product. The best case scenario is that a technology we develop here at PATH would be transferred to a manufacturer in the developing world, but it depends on what is being produced and who we are able to partner with. Our guides to our private sector collaborations at http://www.path.org/publications/detail.php?i=348 and http://www.path.org/publications/detail.php?i=1765 speak more to this.

- How many people play the role of interfacing with the community members during device design and development, and how often and in what form does communication happen with the end users of the device?

I can’t answer how many, but every technology developed at PATH goes through rigorous field testing which includes members of the communities where it will be used, so the end users are involved from very early on in the development process. How the field testing is done and communicated depends upon the product, but we do have a research ethics committee that reviews every field study to ensure they meet ethical standards while still providing the information we need to capture from the testing.
The product development framework document (linked in your first question) and this document: http://www.path.org/files/OTP_health_tech_within_reach.pdf which includes some examples can provide more details.

Hopefully this isn't too much of a burden to help us out with.  Thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate it!

Take care

****************************************************
Annelies Tjebbes

Chapter President, Engineers Without Borders UBC Chapter
Biomedical Electrical Engineering Student, UBC

(c) 604-561-7237