Examination arrangement

Course content

Technology and innovation is an integral part of healthcare, in both developing and developed countries. While understanding key concepts of epidemiology, health management and statistics are common topics to the study of Global Health, few courses focus on the importance of technology and innovation, its history, its present and future, and its inherent challenges. The course PH3002 will introduce these key ideas in an interactive way using examples that have been successfully implemented and those that failed. We will analyze the key attributes of success and failures of technology in this course. This course will offer students hands-on experience to design innovation cycle and the importance of technology in improving overall health outcomes in global health. The course will focus on the process of technology, development, optimization and implementation in low middle and high income countries. We will also focus on when and why technology is needed, when it is necessary, and what information it can and cannot provide. In that regard, issues of ethics will also come into play. In addition, the course will provide overview on the current state of technology and what the future technological needs may be. During this course, we will also focus on three kinds of technologies:

1. Successful examples of technology implementation
2. Near-misses
3. Those that failed despite showing promise in early/ prototype stages.

These lessons will guide the framework of our discussion about the need of innovation in global health. Finally, we will also study the current bottlenecks, including social, technological and financial, that may hinder technology development and adoption in resource limited settings.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

The course PH3002 will provide students with in depth knowledge on the following key topics:

• Design innovation cycle in global health.
• The process of technology development, optimization and implementation in global health.
• The essential features needed for a technological innovation to succeed.
• A richer understanding of what kind of technologies are scalable and which are not.
• An understanding of stakeholders in technology development and implementation.

Skills:

Through the course PH3002, we anticipate that the students will develop the following skills:

• Initiating and contributing in any health innovation project.
• Analyzing various models of technology development process and implementation.
• Analysis of the role and responsibilities of various stakeholders in technology development and implementation.
• Group hands-on projects on assessing a technology's promise and trajectory to improve health outcomes.
• Group presentations on the technology development and implementation cycle for global health applications.

General competence:

Upon finishing the course PH3002, the students will have an in-depth understanding of design innovation cycle and global health technologies, their trajectory and the bottlenecks in their implementation, as well as experience working in teams to assess the in country viability and sustainability of a given technology, given the in country financial, socio-cultural, technological and logistical realities.

Learning methods and activities

The course will include lectures, discussions, and case studies to develop student understanding about design innovation cycle, how projects are conceptualized, developed and implemented in a real setting. The course will involve group and individual assignments to develop skills related to case study analysis from an user and technology development, stakeholder analysis, financial analysis, and sustainability analysis. After conducting analysis, students will work in group and individually on their selected case to propose their innovative ideas following the design innovation cycle. They will experience all the four stages of the design innovation cycle including: User and need identification, conceptualization, prototype and testing, business viability for long term sustainability. Overall, students will develop a good overview of all the bottlenecks and what needs to change in the technology for it to be highly successful. Ethical and social issues will also be discussed.

The language of teaching and examination is English.

Compulsory assignments

• Report
• Report
• Individual presentations
• Group presentations
• Final presentation

Further on evaluation

If a student fails the course, the student has to re-take the whole course.

Course materials

Course literature will be announced at the start of the semester.