Achieving appropriate design for developing world heath care: the case of a low-cost autoclave for primary health clinics.
In developing world health clinics, incidence of surgical site infection is 2 to 10 times higher than in developed world hospitals. This paper identifies lack of availability of appropriately designed, low-cost autoclaves in developing world health clinics as a major contributing factor to the dramatic gap in surgical site infection rates. The paper describes the process of developing a low-cost autoclave that addresses the unique challenges faced by developing world primary health clinics and discusses how appropriateness of design was determined. The resulting pressure cooker-based autoclave design was fabricated and tested against the CDC specifications. Twelve partnering clinics in Nepal trialed these autoclaves from July until December 2012.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. hscho@mit.edu
Hallie S
HS
Cho
Gregory D
GD
Tao
Amos
A
Winter
D003906:Developing Countries; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D014943:Global Health; D009390:Nepal; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D013242:Sterilization / Q000295:instrumentation*