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Engineering World Health

Engineering World Health
EWH logo.png
Founded 2001, Memphis, Tennessee
Focus Clinical engineering
Area served
Global
Website ewh.org

Engineering World Health (EWH) is a non-profit organization that works with hospitals and clinics that serve resource-poor communities of the developing world. EWH's focus is on the repair and maintenance of medical equipment - rather than donation - and on building local capacity to manage and maintain the equipment without international aid.

Engineering professors Robert Malkin and Mohammad Kiani established EWH in Memphis in 2001. In 2004, Dr. Malkin and EWH relocated to Duke University, which has been an active partner since that time. As a result of this partnership, EWH is headquartered in Durham, NC. In 2008, EWH received a multi-year grant from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.

Engineering World Health's signature program is the Summer & January Institutes. These service abroad programs engage university-level science and engineering students to use their skills and knowledge to make a direct impact on hospitals in developing countries. Participants spend three to nine weeks in Nicaragua, Rwanda, Tanzania, Guatemala, Cambodia, or Nepal learning hands-on technical skills and the local language, and then working in local hospitals to install, repair, and maintain medical equipment. Participants also train local staff, empowering them to use and maintain equipment, to create lasting improvements in partner hospitals.

Since 2004, over 600 participants have repaired almost 5,800 pieces of hospital equipment, worth an estimated US$12 million.

Seeking a sustainable solution to hospital equipment repair, Engineering World Health started a biomedical equipment technician (BMET) training program in late 2009, in partnership with the GE Foundation. Through a three to four year curriculum tailored to each country's needs, EWH works with a local educational institution and Ministry of Health to train BMETs to international standards, train local teachers to carry on the program in the long term, and establish a permanent, accredited BMET training program.


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