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Problem During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, medical oxygen therapy was urgently needed for patients with hypoxaemia. Many low- and middle-income countries lacked the medical devices for oxygen therapy and experience in their use. Approach In addition to providing medical devices for oxygen therapy for countries in need, the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners developed training videos to help local health workers select, use and maintain this equipment. Diverse health professionals, including engineers and clinicians from resource-constrained countries, collaborated in developing draft videos in their local settings. A production team refined these drafts and delivered the training videos through the platform OpenWHO. Local setting OpenWHO is WHO's free open-access platform providing courses for health workers and others. The courses, based on WHO's scientific and operational guidance, can be easily adapted, contextualized and translated. Relevant changes The production team refined the drafts into 32 training videos. More than 17 505 health workers participated in the OpenWHO course on COVID-19 respiratory equipment between 28 February 2022 and 30 November 2023. Participants were from 189 countries and 38% (6027/16 047) were from low- and lower-middle-income countries. Lessons learnt Involving volunteer biomedical engineers and clinicians from low- and middle-income countries helped provide an appropriate training resource. WHO should continue to develop such training tools and offer them through OpenWHO, especially for emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of 2015, it was estimated that 400 million people lacked access to essential health services The Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Initiative aims to address this issue by delivering quality health service to people around the world whilst minimizing costs. Access to affordable medical technology is a cornerstone to this initiative. Consequently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed the 'Compendium of Innovative Technologies for Low-Resource Settings' in order to highlight 127 innovations that could help to address these health issues. In low resource settings, the lack of reliable infrastructure can limit the success of medical devices, but it is clear that technology developed specifically for these settings, could have a more sustained impact. The 'Feasibility Tool' was designed by the WHOR to quantitatively analyse whether a medical device could be successfully implemented in a particular setting. The WHO has taken steps towards establishing criteria to encourage medical device innovation for appropriate and affordable technologies and local production of basic products, when feasible, in low resource settings. It is evident that encouraging this paradigms shift in our perception of medical technology development and manufacture will benefit healthcare systems around the world.