Development of local devices for telemedicine services in remote areas of Ecuador

In Ecuador, healthcare services and infrastructure in the form of fully equipped and staffed hospitals and clinics tend to be concentrated in large cities and are largely unavailable in marginalized remote and rural areas. Telemedicine has been used to close this healthcare service gap, but with limited effect due to the lack
of adequate means to remotely measure basic physiological parameters. This project aims to tackle this healthcare gap by improving the capacity of ESPOL and SOLCA to support the development of sustainable, low-cost, and non-invasive medical devices for telemedicine services. The project will lean on the experience
in biomedical devices development at the VUB to facilitate a transfer of knowledge to the academic program of the Master of Biomedical Engineering of ESPOL and to the technical staff of SOLCA’s mobile early detection centre units for marginalized remote areas.