Healthcare Innovation and Transformation

Zahraa Al-Sarraf ’21 empowers women through employment opportunities and entrepreneurship with her startup Tuqma. Women have made accessories and mini bags from recycled fabric and garment waste through their initiatives, creating a network of talented and driven women who significantly impact their communities.

Pedro Delgado ’21 worked with the NHS Race and Health Observatory to launch a learning and action network designed to address stark disparities in maternal, perinatal, and neonatal health outcomes for women from Black, Asian, and ethnic minority backgrounds in England. The network blends quality improvement and anti-racism principles to promote clinical transformation and system-wide change.

Qusai Hammouri '21, a pediatric spine surgeon, created MDus.ai—an AI-powered platform that uses animated videos to explain medical information tailored to each patient’s needs. Inspired by his experience as a gay immigrant, he designed it to support patients facing language barriers, low literacy, or limited consultation time—combining technology and empathy to advance health equity.

As part of her health equity project, Hina Ghole ’24 launched Jazz Bundle Packages, which, together with Milvik Bima Pakistan, provided over 3 million people across Pakistan with remote consultations with highly trained teledoctors and specialists. It marked a pivotal effort in addressing health inequities in Pakistan, where geographical disparities and socioeconomic barriers restrict access to quality healthcare.

Mustafa Hasnain ’20 led a team (that also included Gilberto Lopez ’20) that launched an AI-enhanced toolkit designed to simplify the complex process of preparing proposals for international grant and cooperative agreement funding. He says this tool offers a step-by-step workflow that levels the playing field for smaller organizations, helping them create competitive proposals even with fewer resources.

The American Medical Association Innovation Grant Program addresses the need for funding to support educational innovation in medical education by targeting key areas such as health systems science and competency-based education. Kevin Heckman ’20 and his colleagues analyzed outcomes from the program, which funded 28 projects in its first two years, resulting in new curricula, assessment tools and widespread dissemination of findings.

Kenneth Jones ’17 and his team manage the Veterans Geography of Opportunity Tool, which combines publicly available county-level health data with Veteran data from the VHA and the American Community Survey to provide a snapshot of the health of communities where Veterans live. It helps users identify those communities' social, economic, physical and mental health needs.

Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri ’23 created HOWBODI, a digital mental health company leveraging technology to democratize access to mental healthcare for developing countries. The integrated telehealth platform provides 24/7 access to mental healthcare from the comfort of a patient’s phone, computers, and walk-in solar-powered mobile counseling booths, which help reduce the time of diagnosis and treatment by more than 80%.

Bram Wispelwey ’20 and others led the development of The Healing ARC (Acknowledgement, Redress, and Closure) to address racial inequities at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The Healing ARC framework addresses disparities in patient care by enlisting communities and healthcare institutions as equal partners, equally motivated to identify and eliminate health and healthcare inequities with race-conscious strategies.

Collaborating on a year-long group project, 2024 Fellows Zaki Abate, Samuel Akuffo, Hina Ghole and Jasmine Maringmei examined their experiences from Ethiopia, Ghana, Pakistan and India to explore how technology can close care gaps, enhance the delivery of essential health services, and respond to pandemic challenges. They also offer actionable insights into making digital health accessible and inclusive for all, focusing on culturally relevant solutions, accessible in multiple languages, and developed with community input.