Bethel dental clinic catalyzes community mask-making effort

Twelve million people are blind in India, and are robbed of their livelihoods as a result. A hugely successful chain of cataract hospitals in India helped its business by treating half its patients for free.

Tooth decay affects children from all backgrounds, but it’s concentrated among low-income and rural populations, who have the most difficulty accessing and affording dental care. One approach gaining momentum in the United States to extend access to underserved groups is based on an idea that was pioneered in New Zealand 93 years ago, and has been adopted in more than 50 countries - the idea is to train “dental therapists,” who, like dental hygienists, work under the supervision of dentists, but who can also drill teeth and perform non-complex extractions.

Once-a-day generic AIDS drugs for poor countries are hard to make because each ingredient is patented by a different pharmaceutical company. The Patent Pool provides a way for companies to donate their intellectual property safely.

When a heart attack happens, the time of care and treatment is of utmost importance. Many people die of heart attacks every year because too much time passes between the care of emergency staff and the hospital cardiologists. New protocols, and new technology that transmits the EKG of a patient to the hospital before arrival, enable medical professionals to quickly and efficiently treat patients, thus saving lives.

In Honduras, tens of thousands of people have hearing disabilities. The National Autonomous University of Honduras has developed software that converts spoken language into an avatar on the computer who signs for the hearing impaired. Teachers in classrooms can teach hearing impaired students with this new software.

Even though most central line infections are preventable, they are a leading cause of death in the United States. The core of the problem resides in a hospital's approach, whether they put the effort into treating patients like they are in a car crash or a plane crash. Roseville Medical Center looked at the mistakes of other hospitals and have revolutionized how they treat central lines with a new checklist, a specialized vascular team tasked with the central lines, and annual competency tests for contract nurses.

Oral surgeons and other doctors tend to prescribe opioids to their patients following surgery, which has arguably contributed to a rising number of patients, especially those under the age of 25, developing addictions. Now, thanks to increased awareness and new protocols, doctors and dentists are prescribing fewer opioids and more non-addictive pain killers, as well as educating their patients about their prescriptions.

One scientist, dared to take a risk, and go where no one else had: mass-spectrometry imaging of microbes and chemicals. These images tell scientists how microbes communicate with each other, the environment, and humans. The benefits of this new technology could have far reaching benefits.

Dentists in Multnomah County, Oregon are helping to prevent "doctor shopping", where addicts attempt to get prescriptions from multiple providers. They are doing this by checking a national database that lists all of a patient's current prescriptions, and not prescribing refills on opiate prescriptions without a follow-up visit. This effort has drastically reduced the number of overall prescriptions written, and replaced those drugs with ibuprofen and tylenol, which are both proven to be more effective in relieving acute pain.

The World Health Organization estimates that $200 billion worth of productivity is lost every year due to untreated poor eyesight. Several organizations, such as EYElliance and Aravind Eye Hospital, are working to combat this problem by administering free vision tests and helping people who need glasses get them at an affordable rate.