In a recent talk to the SUMR
scholars, Dr. Raina Merchant described her work in the Penn Social Media and
Health Innovation Lab. One project involved a crowdsourcing challenge in which
people sent pictures and the location of Automated External Defibrillators
(AEDs) in the city of Philadelphia. The Health Innovation Lab used this
information to map the AEDs, and by increasing the community’s awareness of
their use and availability, they expect to increase AEDs effectiveness in
saving lives.
It was
inevitable for me to relate this experience to what happens daily in Venezuela,
my home country, where in the face of a growing health care crisis people rely
on social media to find antiretroviral drugs for HIV patients, oral
chemotherapy for cancer patients, and even basic supplies like gauze, gloves,
analgesics and reactive chemicals for lab tests.
Via Penn LDI's SUMR Times Blog
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