Reimagining innovation in humanitarian medicine: engineering care to improve health and welfare

摘要

In this brief, ambitious book of 105 pages and five chapters, the authors set out to demonstrate how health and medical devices (hardware) and technologies (software), once re-engineered as 'disruptive technologies' can play useful roles in humanitarian crises. By 'disruptive technologies' they mean technological developments that create new markets and values within existing markets by offering lower-cost robust inventions that 'disrupt' the marketplace. While this objective is laudable and the devices and technologies discussed are theoretically useful, the authors fail to define clearly the essential terms and conditions that characterize humanitarian crises. In addition, they promote/propose at times the use of technology that is not especially innovative and, in the case of some data-collection and monitoring techniques, support applications that could breach the privacy of forcibly displaced persons.