A Product Life Cycle Approach to Medical Device Development for Low-Resource Settings - A Systematic Literature Review
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Date
2023Type
- Conference Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
Rural areas in most of the world lack functional medical devices for essential care. Even though devices exist on the global market, they are often not accessible in low-resource settings (LRS). One evident reason is the high price that many health facilities in rural areas cannot afford. However, even after the initial purchase, an estimated 70–90% of the devices are not operational. The core of this problem is often that the existing technologies were not designed for these settings, but for high-income countries with efficient healthcare systems and abundant resources. As such, the challenges for medical devices in LRS can vary significantly from high-income countries and span the whole product life cycle. This paper aims to synthesize the existing knowledge from literature about these challenges and to identify the product life cycle stages that provide the greatest potential for further research. Through a systematic keyword search with multiple exclusion rounds using the PRISMA method, 26 relevant papers are identified and analyzed according to the product life cycle stages they cover. The results reveal a lack of knowledge especially about the final life cycle stages, i.e. recycling and disposal, and a wide range of challenges for the use, consumption and maintenance stages as well as the marketing and sales of devices. The identified gaps in generalized knowledge provide a call to action for researchers and medical device developers to investigate and determine critical areas to make high quality medical devices more accessible and sustainable in LRS. Show more
Publication status
publishedExternal links
Book title
Proceedings of the ASME 2023 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 6: 35th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM)Pages / Article No.
Publisher
American Society of Mechanical EngineersEvent
Subject
Low-resource settings (LRS); Medical devices; Product development; Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC); Product life cycleOrganisational unit
03954 - Shea, Kristina / Shea, Kristina
Notes
Conference lecture held on August 12, 2023.V006T06A041
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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