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July 2022
FEATURE
USAID announces advancement of efforts to expand access to medical oxygen in 50 facilities globally
Last month, USAID advanced plans for a previously-announced $50 million investment to expand global access to medical oxygen–starting with commitments to build and improve health care infrastructure to support bulk liquid oxygen in 50 facilities around the world. USAID estimates the investment will support medical oxygen at more than 20,000 beds, enabling hundreds of thousands of patients to receive life-saving oxygen each year.
CII’s Acting Deputy Director Nikki Tyler has worked closely alongside Agency colleagues to ensure broader access to medical oxygen, including those hospitalized with COVID-19 in low- and lower-middle income countries around the world. Other announcements released the same day include the Government of Germany, The Global Fund, the Skoll Foundation, and Unitaid around their work to address the global medical oxygen crisis.
Since the start of the pandemic, donors around the world have mobilized more than $800 million in grant financing to help lowand lower-middle-income countries avert oxygen shortages. These investments have already helped millions of patients, and will continue to be vital components of systems needed to respond to future health emergencies.
DIGITAL HEALTH
CII’s Merrick Schaefer supports release of Global Goods Guidebook
CII’s Senior Digital Health Advisor Merrick Schaefer assisted in the release of Version 3.0 of the Global Goods Guidebook. The Global Goods Guidebook showcases emergent and established digital health tools that are adaptable to different countries and contexts - otherwise known as global goods - that can help address key health systems challenges. The advancement of global goods is crucial for saving lives and improving health around the world because these free and open source digital health tools can be used across different countries and health program verticals, cutting down on fragmentation and duplication to accelerate scale and health impact.
INNOVATION
CII innovator Simprints partnering with Gavi and Arm to improve vaccination rates in Ghana
Simprints, a previous Saving Lives at Birth (SL@B) Grand Challenge winner, is being highlighted in a recently release video for their work to improve vaccination rates in Ghana. Nearly one in four children under the age of five do not officially exist because their births are not registered. Without reliable identity registration, it’s incredibly hard to know when people are missing out on vaccines or follow-up vaccinations. Simprints’ contactless, digital identification system is working to create unique, safe, and private IDs that can be easily used by healthcare workers, governments, and global development practitioners. This work is in partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and technology firm Arm in hopes of improving continuity of care, especially for immunizations.
DIGITAL HEALTH
CII’s Adele Waugaman serves as advisor for new Broadband Commission report
CII’s Senior Digital Health Coordinator Adele Waugaman served as an advisor for the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development’s recently released report, The Future of Virtual Health and Care. The report focused on the opportunities for policymakers globally to reap the benefits of digitization to achieve health goals by pursuing inclusive policies focused on care equity and access for all. The Broadband Commission Working Group on Virtual Health and Care was launched to examine virtual health and care in context of the COVID-19 pandemic: the trends, forecasts, key role of policy in influencing adoption, challenges, and ways of overcoming them.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Swasth
Value Based Care: Ensuring Better Health Outcomes and Quality Healthcare
July 18, 2022
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
Building Resilience Through Public-Private Partnerships Conference
July 28-29, 2022
Unfinished
Unfinished Live
September 21-24, 2022
CII NEWS
Senior Digital Health Advisor, Merrick Schaefer, lectures on digital health and shares “Architects of Digital Health” at the The Global Health Delivery Intensive (GHDI), a joint program of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School
What We're Reading (And Listening To)
NPR’s All Things Considered
Faced with COVID and monkeypox, new USAID leader draws strength from African proverb
The Hill
ARPA-H must think differently and leverage technology
ARS Technica
Webb’s first image reveals fine details of galaxies from billions of years ago
ARL Now
Arlington man develops app to explore D.C. in clue-solving game
Job and Fellowship Opportunities
Finance Associate, Innovative Finance
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Nilima Mehta, Innovation Advisor
Nilima is an Innovation Advisor in the Center for Innovation and Impact (CII). Her work focuses on broadly supporting CII innovation work, including collaborating with Missions and an innovation portfolio review. Prior to joining CII, Nilima worked at Medtronics Foundation leading contracts that focused on expanding primary care and prevention around the world.
Outside of work, Nilima loves to hike with her dogs; cooking and trying new recipes; travelling and discovering new places, people, cultures, and food. In pre-COVID times, she loved going to live shows and concerts. Recently, she has also taken up learning how to play squash and rock climbing.
Read Nilima's full interview here [PDF, 288K]
USAID's Center for Innovation and Impact (CII) takes a business-minded approach to fast-tracking the development, introduction and scale-up of health interventions that address the world's most important health challenges. CII invests seed capital in the most promising ideas and novel approaches, using forward-looking business practices to cut the time it takes to transform discoveries in the lab to impact on the ground.
