Finding Organ Donors Concealed in Plain Sight

Undergoing surgery is a stress-inducing prospect for anyone, but children are especially vulnerable to anxiety prior to operations. To avoid using risky anti-anxiety medications on young patients, two anesthesiologists at the Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford have developed creative techniques to distract children from their forthcoming surgeries. They use toys and a unique low-cost video projection system called BERT-Bedside Entertainment Theater.

A digital platform, called Hope, allows medical clinics in Senegal to track the amount of blood in their blood banks in real time and reaches out to donors via SMS to encourage them to donate every few months. When a rare blood type is needed, an emergency message goes out to all users in the same geographic area, asking them if they are available for an emergency blood donation. This platform has increased the number of blood donations in Senegal and improved patients' chances of receiving life-saving transfusions.

Hospitals can be stressful places for children and their families, but music therapy can help ease some of that stress. At Boston Children's Hospital, music therapists help children complete tasks such as using the restroom or having their blood drawn, and sometimes they even help families say goodbye to their children. Music therapy has been shown to help premature babies develop, normalize blood pressure and heart rate, and improve motor control.

DIY solutions can overcome the scarcity of medical resources in developing countries and save lives. A simple solution such as replacing expensive uterine balloons with more readily accessible condoms has already helped to give thousands of mothers access to a potentially life-saving medical procedure preventing postpartum hemorrhage. The transfer of this and other proven DIY solutions can help cut health-care costs in more affluent countries with low-cost innovations.

In recent years, there has been a decrease in Canadian organ donors but a comprehensive effort by an Ontario hospital is changing that narrative. From increased specialized training for nurses to adding a donation coordinator to morning rounds, Sudbury’s Health Sciences North has become a model for increasing donor rates.

Many people addicted to opioids developed their addiction after being prescribed the drugs after surgery, so some states are changing protocols around the drug distribution. From increased counseling about drug safety to a cap on how many pills doctors prescribe, alternatives to the traditional protocol aims to decrease the likelihood of addiction.

Mozambique has a shortage of practicing surgeons, so medical technicians are being trained to fill their roles in various situations, especially in rural locations. Although there are challenges to using this tactic, the technicians-turned-surgeons have similar complication rates as those who are practicing surgeons.

An app developed by a two telecommunications design engineers in Senegal is helping to connect hospitals with blood donors. The app alerts donors in nearby areas when blood is needed and sends "messages of thanks and donation reminders," which has helped to decrease the regional stigma about donating blood. Although the technology has not achieved widespread adoption, where it has been used, blood donations have significantly increased.

The SimpleVas Vasectomy Clinic is a mobile clinic that travels around to provide easy access to vasectomies by simplifying the entire process. The mobile clinic travels nearly 600 miles around the state every month and has even traveled out to New York City to spread awareness. Through raising awareness of the procedure, the doctor in charge of the clinic now performs about 600 to 700 vasectomies a year.

The NoScar initiative unites volunteer doctors from all over the country to provide free cosmetic surgeries to those with scars due to the ongoing war. There are more than 40 plastic surgeons providing the procedures and together they’ve served 30 patients, as well as soldiers.