Dear Colleagues, and thanks to Sam Lanfranco for bringing this to our 
attention:

Surely this News Release is long on political promotion and short on 
acceptable public health evidence?  While great credit is due to its 
scientific developers at UBC, and the potential it may hold, the high 
political profile being given to it at this early stage is surely 
inappropriate, and possibly misleading at this early stage. I am impressed 
by only one aspect of the release:

"Longer term medical trials of the mobile application and its preeclampsia 
predictive capability will involve 80,000 women in four countries: India, 
Pakistan, Mozambique and Nigeria".

Let us see how this innovation performs against the challenge of improving 
maternal health outcomes in difficult development settings (assuming that 
this is where the trials will take place, and not only in LDC teaching 
hospitals in major centres), and whether it will achieve the external 
validity and population attributable impact required to make a real 
difference.

Please let us know when such evidence is at hand, and in the meantime we 
need to know more from the Minister, the Honourable Christian Paradis, about 
how just much Canada's Muskoka commitment is making a real difference on the 
ground.  May we have objective monitoring and evaluation evidence of a 
Muskoka initiative impact please?

Franklin White MD,CM;MSc;FRCPC;FFPH
Pacific Health & Development Sciences Inc.
PO Box # 44125 – RPO Gorge,
Victoria BC Canada V9A7K1
Website: www.pacificsci.org


-----Original Message----- 
From: Sam Lanfranco
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 1:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CANCHID] Smart phone app to read blood oxygen levels

News Release: March 9, 2014

Smartphone app reads blood oxygen levels, capitalized with new S2 million
Canadian private -public investment, device could save lives of women and
children in low-resource countries

Major new investment in LGTmedical’s Phone Oximeter™ will advance it
towards developing world use Government of Canada S1 million investment,
part of new S10 million partnership with Grand Challenges Canada to
accelerate scale up of promising global health innovations. Private and
public investors are injecting S2 million into a Canadian mobile health
innovation that offers hope of preventing thousands of deaths and improving
the health of expectant mothers, newborns and children throughout the
developing world.
LionsGate Technologies (LGTmedical), a Vancouver based social enterprise,
has secured its first major financial backers to scale up development of
the Phone Oximeter™, an app and medical sensor that turns a
non-specialist, community-level health worker’s smartphone, tablet
computer or laptop into an affordable and simple but sophisticated
medical-grade diagnostic tool, which is currently typically available in
the developing world only in some hospitals.

The device measures blood oxygen levels through a light sensor attached to
a person's fingertip. This technique is known as pulse oximetry. The Phone
Oximeter™, using a predictive score, can accurately identify an estimated
80% of cases of pregnant women at risk of life-threatening complications
resulting from high blood pressure. The condition, pre-eclampsia, is one of
three leading causes of maternal mortality. an issue of social justice,”
said Dr. von Dadelszen. The Phone Oximeter™ can also reveal dangerously
low oxygen levels in patients with pneumonia, which kills more than 1
million children annually. The S40 target price will make it 80% less
costly than any other current device capable of meeting high-level medical
standards.

For a 4 page pdf news release with links see:  http://bit.ly/1gcNan2
(http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit%2Ely%2F1gcNan2&urlhash=3mzf&_t=tracking_anet)

Posted by Sam Lanfranco


Access CANCHID archives at: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/canchid.html
plus CANCHID subscription management. CANCHID is a joint service of the 
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Distributed Knowledge Project (York University). Queries to Sam Lanfranco 
<[log in to unmask]>


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Access CANCHID archives at: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/canchid.html
plus CANCHID subscription management. CANCHID is a joint service of the Canadian Society for International Health < http:www.csih.org > and the Distributed Knowledge Project (York University). Queries to Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]>