Over the next three years, AWS is committing $40M to harness the power of the cloud to advance health equity globally”, reads the opening line of a post on aws.amazon.com., the Amazon Web Services (AWS) website.
The website lays out succinctly what Amazon, the giant multinational technology company, targets with its AWS initiative. It offers “AWS Promotional Credit and technical expertise to selected institutions and companies addressing health disparities that impact underserved or underrepresented communities around the world.”
That is how the University of Nairobi’s Nairobi Surgical Skills Centre (NSSC) got to benefit from a digital upgrade of equipment, this being a digital upgrade grant by Proximie’s Amazon Web Services Health Equity Award, a part of the Innovate+ Kenya Global Programme. The grant covered hardware, license, change management, besides additional in-kind value.
Commissioning the equipment on March 14, 2024, UoN Vice-Chancellor Prof. Stephen Kiama was upbeat that the equipment is revolutionary. “The digital upgrade on the equipment continues breaking barriers through digitalization, which is the future of healthcare,” he said.
The others who were present at the event included Makueni County Health CECM, Dr. Paul Musila, Dean Faculty of Health Sciences, Prof. Goerge Osanjo, and the Dean Faculty of Science and Technology, Prof. John Onyari.
Expressing his gratitude for the donation, Prof. Osanjo said that the “iniitiative will upgrade the excellence and quality of training for students at the centre.
He was also grateful to the American pharmaceutical company, Johnson and John for their support also in the equipment upgrade.
The equipment will allow for real-time sharing of ongoing surgeries to those who are off site including surgeons and students who do not need to crowd around the surgery table. It also has a dialing-in capability to enable those on site to communicate with off-site consulting surgeons.
Speaking about the event, Dr. Musila, whose home county of Makueni has used the equipment for some time now, related how it is applied in teaching surgery to medical students and to monitor surgeries during deliveries to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths.
The event culminated in the signing of an MoU between the University and Makueni County for collaborations and expanded use of the equipment.
For a short perspective, AWS Health Equity Initiative aims to support applications that develop culturally responsive solutions to:
1) increase access to health services,
2) reduce disparities by addressing social determinants of health,
3) leverage data to promote equitable and inclusive systems of care, and
4) advance equity in diagnostics and screening.
AWS sees the initiative as an opportunity to leverage cloud-based health-related data to minimize social and structural disparities in health among underserved populations especially coming on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cloud and -based innovations, the site writes, can support equitable, sustainable and inclusive recovery efforts to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing.