Skip to main content Skip to navigation

News: ABSPIE recent initiatives


Select tags to filter on

WHO Mentions ABSPIE’s Paper on Smart Environments and Robots for Infection Prevention Control in Latest Global Research and Innovation for Health Emergencies Report

The World Health Organization (WHO) has mentioned the paper "The use of Smart Environments and Robots for Infection Prevention Control: a systematic literature review" by Piaggio et al. (2023) in its latest Global Research and Innovation for Health Emergencies report. The report, which was released on October 10, 2023, highlights the most important and promising research and innovation on infection prevention and control (IPC).


Prestigious IFMBE Health Technology Assessment Division award for Adriana Velazquez Berumen

IFMBE award presented to the WHO's Adriana Velazquez Berumen

Fri 10 Feb 2023, 14:48 | Tags: Clinical Engineering, IFMBE, WHO, COVID19, pandemic, Biomedicalengineering

Transforming PPE in healthcare! Here the report by ‘Rethinking PPE’, a collaborative effort of over 50 individuals from different global organisations active in the health sector.

Since 2020, our lab has been supporting the work that the Global Community of biomedical and clinical engineers is doing with United Nations in order to face this pandemic. In the framework of his collaboration as Innovation Manager for the PPE Pillar of the WHO Blueprint and COVID-19 initiative, our lab Director, Prof Leandro Pecchia, contributed to the writing of the ‘Rethinking PPE’ report. This was a collaborative effort of over 50 individuals from different global organisations active in the health sector, including the WHO, UNICEF, The World Bank, The Global Fund, US CDC, and top universities including the MIT, Johns Hopkins, UCL, University of Colorado, University of Warwick. The effort was coordinated by McKinsey & Company .

The main conclusion of the report is that transforming the PPE ecosystem will require five coordinated shifts:

  1. Catalysing PPE innovation:
  2. Improving standards and quality
  3. Expanding and diversifying manufacturing capacity:
  4. Strengthening procurement practices;
  5. Improving usage and disposal.

"Until the arrival of the pandemic, the importance of PPE seemed to be unknown to most, and above all absent from the research and innovation priorities of all the main research councils.", Prof Pecchia says. "The only ones who have stubbornly worked on PPE since the recent Ebola outbreaks have been the stubborn members of the WHO, in particular Adriana Velazquez Berumen, and the Emergency and Infection Control and Prevention Units, headed by Benedetta Allegranzi and April Baller. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this vision came from three extraordinary women".
Warwick main contribution to this report was probably in the analysis of the inadequacy of PPE regulatory frameworks in time of crisis and in resource-limited setting scenarios (Pecchia et al, 2020).

Here the report: TRANSFORMING THE MEDICAL PPE ECOSYSTEM

Fri 06 Aug 2021, 13:05 | Tags: Clinical Engineering, LMIC, WHO, pandemic

ABSPIE Lab COVID-19 contingency activities

The Applied Biomedical Signal Processing Intelligent eHealth (ABSPIE) Lab has been deeply dealing with COVID-19 since the first few cases in the UK.

Led by Dr Pecchia, the ABSPIE Lab multidisciplinary Team has been involved in several activities, briefly described below, giving a significant contribution to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.


ABSPIE in Benin: field study on medical device working conditions and the application of international directives

Three members of the lab, are in Benin, Africa, to perform two field studies.

Davide Piaggio and Busola Oronti are two PhD student with a background in biomedical engineering and medical devices. Both are IFMBE Clinical Engineering Division collaborators. In this field study Davide and Busola are testing medical devices considering international standards and regulations for electric safety.

In fact, it is know that medical devices in Africa struggle to work as in Europe, but there is no evidence of the real reasons why this is. The aim of this study is to produce evidence on reasons why medical devices fail to work safely and effectively. This will inform the design of more resilient medical devices.

Meanwhile Alessia Maccaro, Philosopher with a PhD in bioethics, is investigates the implications of adopting EU regulations in Africa. Our hypothesis is that the uncritical adoption of international regulations can result in risky and unethical working conditions.

abspie in Africaabspie in Africaabspie in Africaabspie in Africaabspie in Africaabspie in Africaabspie in Africa

Sat 30 Nov 2019, 11:01 | Tags: Clinical Engineering, LMIC, WHO, #GlobalCEDay, BME, GlobalHealth

Older news