AMPATH Surgery Team Advances in International Innovation Challenge
AMPATH’s surgical team won a $200,000 Discovery Award last month from the Global Surgical Training Challenge to develop and test their proposed “AMPATH Surgical APp (ASAP).”
Dr. Ivan Seno, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) and JoAnna Hunter-Squires, MD, Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine, lead the team that also includes surgical residents from Moi and IU, several members from the IU surgical education team, as well as automated intelligence engineers, simulation experts, performance coaches and the Case Network (healthcare education).
“The purpose of our proposed app is teaching basic surgical skills necessary for the WHO list of Essential and Emergency Surgical Procedures with just a self-assembled simulator and smart phone,” said Dr. Hunter-Squires, AMPATH surgery team leader. The team’s prototype will specifically focus on safe open appendectomy.
Surgeons at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital
“The Discovery Award will allow the team to develop a mobile application that will guide the learner through the evaluation and management of lower right quadrant pain, indicative of appendicitis,” said Dr. Seno.
“Using mobile technology, the learner will be able to apply these skills immediately, or ASAP (as soon as possible),” added team member Dr. Manisha Bhatia, IU Global Surgery Fellow. The team hopes the app will eventually train clinicians who are expected to perform open appendectomies in primary and secondary health facilities throughout the world.
According to the competition website, “The Intuitive Foundation, in partnership with Nesta Challenges, MIT Solve, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Appropedia launched the Global Surgical Training Challenge to stimulate the creation of novel, low-cost surgical training modules. These open-source modules will help surgical practitioners to learn and assess new skills to improve the health of their communities.”
The Global Surgical Training Challenge is a three-level competition. Three to five successful prototypes will be announced toward the end of 2021 to receive a Finalist Awards of $500,000 USD. The grand prize is $1 million USD for the most successful prototype with the most potential impact through further module development.
In order to be eligible for the Global Surgical Training Challenge, each competing multi-disciplinary team must include a leader from a low- or middle-income country and include an educator, clinician and technical expert.
“The collaborative nature of this challenge is something that we are used to both as surgeons and as part of the AMPATH partnership,” said Dr. Dimitrios Stefanidis, head of IU surgical education.
“Surgery is our universal culture and language as surgeons. The passion for surgical education and successful patient outcomes is the same no matter what country you are in,” said Dr. Hunter-Squires.
Earlier in the year, the surgery team also received a $5,000 USD grant from Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) to fund skills training and education for core needle biopsy of the breast for Moi University general surgery registrars. The goal of the grant is to improve work-up and diagnosis of breast disease (cancer) as registrars graduate and become the surgical workforce of Kenya. This is an important part of the surgery team’s effort to help more Kenyan women get care while their breast cancer is still treatable.