News: ABSPIE recent initiatives

ABSPIE Lab participated in the EPIG (European Parliament Interest Group) event, which focused on revisions to the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) to address regulatory bottlenecks. Key themes included medical innovation, sustainability, digital transformation (EHDS and AI), and patient safety, emphasizing the sector’s impact with 2 million technologies, 37,000 companies (90% SMEs), and 880,000 jobs. The event echoed the message: "No health, no wealth; no medical technologies, no healthcare."

Giacomo Pratesi and Davide Piaggio have been awarded a Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) at the University of Warwick. Their research focuses on validating "DINO" by Paperbox Health, a web-based game for early literacy assessment in English primary schools.

The 7th East Africa Regional Healthcare Engineering Conference (EARC) 2024 in Mwanza, Tanzania, brought together scholars and professionals to address critical challenges in biomedical engineering. Representing a collaborative international team, our intern Mr Ernest Bwogi presented research on oxygen concentrator failures in low-resource settings, exploring the impact of dust and humidity. The experience was transformative, offering valuable feedback, inspiring discussions, and fostering meaningful connections. This milestone highlighted the importance of collaboration, persistence, and knowledge-sharing in driving innovation.

Dr. Davide Piaggio from the University of Warwick played a key role in the "IoT and AI for Frugal Innovation 2024" bootcamp, hosted by Università Campus Bio-Medico of Rome. Dr. Piaggio, along with PhD student James Wallace, led sessions on frugal innovation, 3D printing design, and blood pressure estimation using PPG signals. The bootcamp, supported by the Biomedical Engineering Institute and the Society & Culture Spotlight, provided students with hands-on learning in resource-constrained environments, with special recognition for scholarship recipient Dr. Gamal Abdulnaser Yahya Al-Kawsi.

The WHO has published two key documents to improve healthcare in low-resource settings: "Medical Device Donations: Considerations for Solicitation and Provision" and the WHO Compendium of Innovative Health Technologies. These publications, developed with contributions from Davide Piaggio and Leandro Pecchia of the ABSPIE Lab, among others, focus on frugal and sustainable biomedical engineering. They underscore the importance of safety, quality, and regulatory compliance in medical device donations and highlight innovative health technologies. This work reflects the strong collaboration between the ABSPIE Lab and WHO in advancing global health.