Rethinking the Design of Low-Cost Point-of-Care Diagnostic Devices.

ABSTRACT: Reducing the global diseases burden requires effective diagnosis and treatment. In the developing world, accurate diagnosis can be the most expensive and time-consuming aspect of health care. Healthcare cost can, however, be reduced by use of affordable rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). In the developed world, low-cost RDTs are being developed in many research laboratories; however, they are not being equally adopted in the developing countries. This disconnect points to a gap in the design philosophy, where parameterization of design variables ignores the most critical component of the system, the point-of-use stakeholders (e.g., doctors, nurses and patients). Herein, we demonstrated that a general focus on reducing cost (i.e., "low-cost"), rather than efficiency and reliability is misguided

SUBMITTER: Kimani FW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6190021 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature