爆料王

A passion for emerging technologies, data science and social development has seen Manoj A. Thomas impact millions of lives around the world through the innovative use of low-cost technologies to improve healthcare education.

So impactful is his work that he has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright Global Scholar Award to support his international mission.

Thomas, an Associate Professor of Business Information Systems at the 爆料王 Business School, has travelled the world delivering a broad range of social development projects through his background in data science and emerging technologies.

鈥淭he other thing I consistently noted was that businesses and developmental agencies were far ahead of the government in adopting new technologies to address the needs of communities.鈥�

This led to him co-founding the non-profit to support his current initiative: , an innovative way to provide healthcare practitioners access to the latest medical research and education.

CMES is now used by over 4,200 medical practitioners in 16 countries, serving a patient population base of around 8-10 million people.

CMES is so named because it was originally delivered on thumb drives or 鈥榮ticks鈥�, but the team has increasingly turned its attention to using small, cheap Raspberry Pi computers to store the information 鈥� which can be easily and remotely accessed via smart phone.

鈥淒octors liked the thumb drives, but the feedback was they weren鈥檛 effective in the field as they required access to a computer to use them, so that鈥檚 how we came up with using the Raspberry Pis as a solution,鈥� said Associate Professor Thomas.

鈥淭he doctors no longer need access to a computer at the patient鈥檚 bedside; they can just pull out their phone and access information instantly. The thumb drives are still used in very remote areas where the Pi is not a practical option.

鈥淐MES comes with over six years鈥� worth of the most up-to-date content provided by , and the Raspberry Pi is always looking for an internet connection to download new content.鈥�

The team鈥檚 preference is to send two people to each site to implement CMES at clinics and hospitals, provide initial hands-on training, and conduct data collection for research. This has been hampered in recent years by pandemic-induced travel restrictions.

Ongoing global supply chain issues continue to restrict the team鈥檚 expansion efforts due to a Raspberry Pi shortage, but the largest barrier remains funding.

鈥淐OVID was a big challenge but also a big opportunity as healthcare professionals around the world scrambled for the latest information and treatment advice. In many remote and rural clinics, the CMES platform served as a one-stop gateway for doctors to stay current with COVID management protocols. I鈥檓 very happy with our achievements through this time,鈥� said Associate Professor Thomas.

鈥淲e keep growing and CMES has gone from country to country by word of mouth, but we simply don鈥檛 have the human resources or financial capital to meet the scalability challenges. Most of our money goes to site visits and cloud-based technology costs that power the CMES platform.鈥�

Associate Professor Thomas said that his team undertakes a strong vetting process to ensure interested countries have a need for CMES, and that there is support from institutional leaders and policy makers to use and take ownership of the technology.

Doctors in Solomon Islands, Cook Islands and Tuvalu have access to CMES thumb drives. Associate Professor Thomas visited Samoa and Fiji in 2019, then Papua New Guinea this year to implement Raspberry Pis and provide training.

He will concentrate his efforts on Africa and South America until 2024 as part of the Fulbright award commitment.

鈥淥ceania surprised us with its readiness. I鈥檓 amazed with the welcome and ease of rollout we鈥檝e experienced here.

鈥淚鈥檓 proud to be working at a political level with ministries of health internationally. Papua New Guinea is a model we鈥檇 like to see for the rest of Oceania, and we鈥檙e looking forward to the upcoming rollout in East Timor later in the year.鈥�