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 Canadian Society for International Health < http:www.csih.org > and the Distributed Knowledge Project (York University). Queries to Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4335 / Virus Database: 3722/7175 - Release Date: 03/10/14 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]>