Strengthening Health Systems

To help address the shortage of trained diabetes healthcare professionals in India, home to an estimated 60 million diabetics, the Medtronic Foundation awarded grants to two organizations spearheading programs to train doctors, diabetes educators, technicians and community health workers.

Medtronic Foundation funds will contribute to the India Diabetes Research Foundation plan to train 960 doctors, 600 health educators/dieticians and 4,000 paramedical field staff over a five-year period. In addition, a Medtronic Foundation two-year grant to the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation is supporting the training of 20 physicians, 2 ophthalmologists, 12 certified diabetes educators and 5 students completing diabetes-focused nurse and technician courses.

Access to information on medical technology is a major challenge in China, where more than 260 million people suffer from chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease. In large cities, patients with a chronic disease have an average of 20 minutes to discuss treatment options with a physician during their first visit to the hospital¹.

To address this issue, Medtronic opened a hands-on Patient Care Center in Beijing to educate patients, physicians and caregivers on our latest cardiovascular therapies. Operated in cooperation with China’s National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, the center provides a wide range of materials, from interactive videos to three-dimensional heart models, which help patients make informed decisions regarding their treatment.

¹Based on a 2010 Livingston Market Consultants sample survey of patients in Beijing.

The Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management (CRDM) business at Medtronic hosted an inaugural Implant Summit in 2011 that brought leading physicians from China, India, and Malaysia together with nearly 200 Medtronic CRDM employees.

Discussions with the visiting physicians centered on implant improvements, understanding patients’ needs, and key economic and healthcare issues relevant in emerging markets; all critical steps to making Medtronic technologies more accessible to people in these countries who need them.

The physicians also spent a full day in the lab, testing Medtronic products and sharing information on the unique abilities and skills they’ve acquired by working in environments that offer limited medical supplies. CRDM plans to host another Implant Summit in 2012.

As a member of the Workplace Wellness Alliance, a consortium launched at the World Economic Forum to advance workplace health and productivity, Medtronic is exchanging knowledge and learning with other companies to expand the reach and impact of effective workplace wellness programs. 

Total Health, our own workplace wellness program, proactively addresses preventable disease by looking at risk factors, including poor diet, smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and lack of exercise. Through the program, we seek to improve employee health, well-being and productivity; reduce absenteeism; and save millions of dollars in healthcare costs annually.

Total Health provides Medtronic employees with access to health screenings; weight loss, nutrition, exercise and smoking cessation classes; organized sports teams; flu shots; walking programs; and health fairs. Medtronic is also in the process of rolling out a global health & wellness website customized by location and adapted for local cultural norms and regulations, with lifestyle improvement programs and health coaching for employees.

Medtronic Foundation grants support the work of Partners in Health (PIH) to create a model for integrating prevention and treatment of NCDs into the primary care system in some of the world’s poorest rural communities in Rwanda. Working closely with the Ministry of Health, PIH focuses on nurse training, but physicians, community health workers and health policy makers are also involved at the national, district and local levels. Prevention is a critical piece of the strategy to reduce heart disease and other NCDs, and is a component of the training.

The Medtronic Foundation also supports the Center for Chronic Disease Control in India, specifically the organization’s work to develop a model and tools to integrate the awareness, prevention, diagnosis, and management of NCDs into the primary care system. The project also includes deploying trained community health workers for improving cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and care at the community level; and integrating e-learning decision-based support systems to aid primary care physicians and community health workers’ management of CVD and diabetes.

In South Africa, the Medtronic Foundation supports Columbia University’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP) which adapts HIV/AIDS tools, systems and strategies to prevent, diagnose, and care for patients with diabetes and hypertension, focusing on nurse-led services at health center level.  The project includes both primary and secondary prevention. 

An unprecedented initiative, the Medtronic Foundation HeartRescue Project assembles leading U.S. emergency and resuscitation experts with a goal to improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates by at least 50 percent within pilot states of Arizona, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington.

The HeartRescue Project's select non-profit partners will promote a recognized, replicable, and measurable model that coordinates training and technologies for the general public, first responders and EMS, as well as effective post-resuscitation care in the hospital, to maximize survival rates.

While it has been virtually eradicated in developed countries, rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is one of the most preventable, yet prevalent, neglected NCDs of the poor, with 200,000 deaths occurring annually in Africa alone. Grants from the Medtronic Foundation to the World Heart Federation, Public Health Foundation of India, Bienmoyo Foundation, Rwanda Heart Foundation, WiRED and the University of Cape Town in South Africa support awareness, early diagnosis and prevention efforts for RHD.

For example, funds to the Bienmoyo Foundation will support the screening and early diagnosis of more than 6,000 school children for strep throat and signs of Rheumatic Fever or RHD, as well as educational and awareness intitiatives, within the Manyara region of Tanzania. This effort will be complemented with health initiatives to ensure care for those identified with signs and symptoms.

Medtronic Foundation grants also support advocacy and awareness among policy makers and health professionals; and the development of best practices for screening, treatment and follow up of patients identified with Rheumatic Fever or Strep Throat.

The Medtronic Foundation works closely with the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management business at Medtronic on donations of pacemakers to Solidarity Bridge, a nonprofit organization working in Bolivia.

The Foundation complements these donations with grants to Solidarity Bridge that enable the organization to build capacity and to address Chagas Disease, a neglected disease that results in heart failure and is prevalent in Latin America. Learn More