Innovations

Pain Management
Because crying rooms should not exist.
Learn More About Nerve Blocks
Make it locally.
Learn About the Cassava Gel
Shedding light on your medications.
Learn More About Drug Testing
Alleviating Ranger Danger
Because community capacity building saves lives.
Learn More About Park Triage
Providing children life saving medications.
Learn About the Nasal Spray
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to Health Care in Communities in Crisis

Because Systems Fail

3.5 billion people - more than half of the world's population - live in countries that do not provide access to basic, essential health services. These conditions have created an unfathomable global crisis. InnovationsCZ creates structures that mitigate these systems failures through collaborating with impacted communities to generate creative healthcare solutions.

in Crisis Zones

Nerve
Blocks

Did you know people in low-resource settings have do not have access to pain management medication when they are injured or have surgery? This untreated pain costs countries more than cardiovascular disease and cancer combined. InnovationsCZ introduced a low-cost tool called “nerve blocks” which is now being used to treat pain in Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia. Over 5,000 procedures have been performed with only two minor complications, this project is scaling up in five new countries.
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Ultrasound gel is hard to come by in low-resource setting. This is critical given the lack of X-ray machines and CT scanners to help diagnoses injury or disease. InnovationsCZ developed an ultrasound gel out of cassava root, a starch available almost everywhere on the African Continent and Latin America. Locally made cassava gel costs pennies to produce and is tested and comparable to the more expensive imported commercial gel.
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Cassava Gel

Drug
Testing

Did you know that up to 70% of pharmaceutical drugs for sale in low-resource and conflict settings are counterfeit? When governments are non-functioning, there are no systems to safeguard medications. InnovationsCZ has developed a prototype for a low-cost handheld machine that uses LED technology to test medication in real time at bedside.
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Did you know that National Park Rangers in places like Virunga and Lomami National Parks in the DR Congo – home to some of the last mountain gorillas – have a tragically high death and injury rate. We have designed a unique ranger medic course and a comprehensive plan for park administration to properly triage  medical conditions or injuries. Our end goal is to improve medical care, alleviating suffering, and improving health outcomes in this conflict ridden, low-resource setting.
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Park Triage

The Nasal Spray

There are many barriers to providing sick children in low-resourced communities the IV medications they need. The threat of infectious disease due to the lack of sterile equipment, the lack of equipment, and the universal fear children have of needles are only some of the barriers to. The Nasal Spray project is partnering with Médecins Sans Frontières to prototype a safe, inexpensive, and painless way for medical staff to medicate children easily using an aerosolized spray.
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