Center Activities

Assessing clinical needs

Understanding the opportunities and barriers to deployment of effective, appropriate point-of-care diagnostic technologies in low-resource settings is a critical step in informing the selection of technologies for consideration as exploratory projects or for clinical evaluation. The GHDx Center draws upon PATH’s considerable institutional knowledge and conducts in-depth clinical needs analyses to help target the most pressing global health challenges and increase the likelihood of success.

These clinical needs analyses help technology developers navigate potential pitfalls that can derail successful commercialization and uptake of point-of-care diagnostic technologies. We believe that a clear understanding and articulation of clinical needs, priorities, and opportunities will encourage technology developers to tackle the significant challenges of making point-of-care diagnostics a reality in low-resource settings.

An overview of the Nicaraguan health system

The Nicaraguan Health System: An Overview of Critical Challenges and Opportunities—including case studies on Chagas disease, dengue, and malaria—is now available. These studies focus on several factors influencing the health care system in Nicaragua, including recent trends, regional and national control strategies, financing and partnerships, and unmet clinical needs associated with each disease.

Results of our work on HIV/AIDS in Nicaragua were featured in: (1) the Bulletin of the World Health Organization article: Management of the HIV epidemic in Nicaragua: the need to improve information systems and access to affordable diagnostics, available at: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-086124.pdf; and (2) the Journal of the International AIDS Society: Cost analysis of centralized viral load testing for antiretroviral therapy monitoring in Nicaragua, a low-HIV prevalence, low-resource setting, available at: http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/17560.

Photo: PATH/Tala de los Santos.