Challenge
Every year, roughly 900,000 children around the world under the age of five lose their lives to pneumonia, a preventable and easily treatable disease. In low-resource settings, the scarcity of doctors and nurses, coupled with a lack of training among healthcare workers, results in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. The main reason being misclassification of respiratory rates, leading to incorrect pneumonia diagnosis.
Opportunity
Reducing the child mortality rate from pneumonia hinges on the availability of reliable and easy-to-use diagnostic tools. Traditional methods, like counting breaths with pen or paper, are not only time-consuming but are also prone to errors.
Solution
ChARM, otherwise known as the Children’s Automated Respiration Monitor, is a battery-powered breathing rate monitor. This device enables health workers to accurately diagnose pneumonia with children under five, so a simple, cost-effective treatment using widely available medication can be put in motion.
Status
With Philips as a partner the future looks promising. So what’s next? ChARM is currently in the phase of a slight redesign and preparing the necessary steps for recertification. After this they will resume production, so the device can be easily available where it’s needed most.
