Introduction
Childhood pneumonia is a disease that still claims many lives, especially in developing countries. This paper will discuss how technology can be used in the future to improve the diagnosis of pneumonia hence enabling parents to take their children to healthcare centers before the disease gets to a critical stage.
The paper will also discuss the technological infrastructure needed for such technology to work, and will also indicate the social structures that might be needed for the technology to be successful. Overall, the paper argues that with the right social structures, and technological infrastructure, the specific technology innovation discussed in this paper can be used to improve early diagnosis of pneumonia hence decreasing pneumonia-related deaths, especially among children.
Pneumonia Detecting Technology
Pneumonia is a disease that affects the lungs, and its symptoms include rapid breathing, nasal congestion, labored breathing, fever coughs and chills among other symptoms. Usually, parents who have no medical knowledge confuse pneumonia symptoms with other diseases affecting the upper respiratory tract. The gadgets will be made in the USA by combining different chest congestion-detecting, temperature reading, and breathing-detecting features.
The development and manufacture of the device will be financed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank. Consequently, beneficiary countries in the developing world will receive the technological devices free of any charges. The devices will be easy to use, hardy, and portable. Additionally, the technology device will have a switch-on button that will be pressed whenever a parent needs to use the gadget.
The gadget will be used to detect a child’s breathing patterns, body temperature, and chest congestion, and will be configured to alert the parents when a child needs to be rushed to the emergency room (ER). Specifically, the technology device will have two different lights.
A red light will signal the need to take the child to the ER, and a blue light will indicate a low pneumonia risk. Notably, the gadget will not substitute a doctor’s diagnosis; rather, it will be used to enhance the rate at which parents seek medical attention for their children who are at a high risk of pneumonia infections.
Parents in developing countries do not even know the possibility of a pneumonia-detecting device exists. However, as Diamond (242), not every technological invention has to respond to an identified need. Arguably, the fact that pneumonia-related deaths remain high is an indication that something needs to be done.
Since the solution to lowering pneumonia-related deaths is not necessarily dependent on the invention of a technological device that detects the disease, Diamond (242) is seemingly right in his argument that “invention is often the mother of necessity, rather than the vice versa.”
In other words, parents in developing countries may become aware of the need or necessity of the device, only after it had developed and distributed. However, they might not understand that the possibility that such a device could be made. Consequently, they cannot need something whose possibility of existence they do not acknowledge. The preceding argument discounts the notion that innovations are always made to serve a known need in society.
A possible major effect on the children is drawn from the fact that the pneumonia-detecting device will reduce infant mortality rates. It will also alleviate ignorance from parents who in some impoverished countries do not perceive chest congestion or rapid breathing as severe symptoms. More critically, however, the pneumonia-detecting device might bring a new revelation to innovators that technological devices can be used to improve other health outcomes.
As Bijker (1) notes the effects that technological innovations have on the society are not always related to the technology itself. As an example of how far-reaching effects of technology can be, Bijker (1) recounts the story of a woman cyclist who was denied entry into the coffee room.
Later, the woman sued the proprietor of the coffee room, and though she lost the case, Bijker (1) notes that perhaps that case played a role in the modern society where traditional gender roles are increasingly questioned. The technology device in the foregoing story is the bicycle.
Similarly, a pneumonia-detecting device may lead to different social impacts most of them related to the well-being of children and their families in most vulnerable communities. One likely consequence of the use of a pneumonia-detecting device would be developing nations petitioning WHO and World Bank to fund more innovations that alleviate the disease burden in most of the vulnerable developing countries.
The pneumonia-detecting device would shape the way we see other people by allowing children from different developing nations a chance of growing up. In other words, the device would enable governments and other stakeholders to uphold the sanctity of life of every child regardless of where that child has been born and bred. The innovators and developers of the device would also perhaps be more inspired to find solutions to other matters affecting humanity.
In a similar way that the pocket watches shaped peoples’ consciousness of time as narrated by McCrossen (1), the pneumonia-detecting devices may shape people’s consciousness of life-threatening illnesses like pneumonia. The preceding argument is especially practical when viewed from the context of developed nations where ignorance or the pure lack of knowledge prevents most people from seeking medical services.
To the beneficiary governments, the pneumonia-detecting device may reinforce the need to invest in healthcare infrastructural services. For example, failure by parents to reach healthcare facilities in good time despite having been warned of the need to take their children to the ER by the device may be an indication that healthcare facilities are not readily accessible.
Accessibility could be hindered by poor transport infrastructure or the spatial distance between communities and healthcare facilities. Supposing that poor transport infrastructure is the cause of delays in accessing hospitals, governments would most likely invest in developing the same. The effect of the pneumonia-detecting device would not only result in improved health outcomes but also enhanced transport infrastructure.
The pneumonia detecting device will also shape the innovator’s perceptions of selves by allowing them to understand that they can change lives through their innovations. As Chell and Athayde (7) note, innovators may discover different novel ideas. By developing their ideas into technology innovations, they use the ideas and knowledge to help the society attain specific milestones.
Chell and Athayde (7) further note “…the production of novelty is what matters.” Once an innovation is successful, the innovator gets the confidence to pursue innovation even further. Usually, innovators do not always succeed at their first attempt; however, they keep on trying to actualize their ideas, and when they succeed, the innovation serves to boost their resolve to be better innovators.
The technology discussed in this paper has its advantages and its disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is that the pneumonia-detecting device will improve the rate of diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia. Consequently, the mortality rates occasioned by pneumonia-related diseases will decrease significantly.
Another advantage, which may not be too obvious or clear at this time, relates to the effect that the pneumonia-detecting device will have on different stakeholders. As suggested in this paper, the possibilities of the effects that the device could have on the society, innovators and even beneficiary communities are endless.
Developing countries can start petitioning the World Bank and WHO to finance many more health-related innovations; governments can improve the transport infrastructure in their respective countries, and innovators can become more dedicated to their innovations especially when they realize the impact that the pneumonia-detecting device has on specific communities.
Conclusion
This paper provides a description and analysis of the pneumonia-detecting device. The device will be provided to a vulnerable society without any charges hence increasing its adoption and use. The device is an important future innovation due to its ability to detect pneumonia and alert parents to take their children to the ER. Consequently, the device will help reduce childhood mortality in developing countries where ignorance and lack of knowledge about pneumonia symptoms are common.
The effects that technological innovation will have on the society will most likely not to be restricted to the health sector alone. Rather, it is possible the device’s effects will spread to other areas of society. Overall, the paper is an illustration of the far-reaching effects that technology can have in a society where it is adopted. The effects range from the imaginable (e.g., improved health outcomes) to those that the device innovators did not envision (e.g., infrastructure improvement).
Works Cited
Bijker, Wiebe J. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. Print.
Chell, Elizabeth and Rosemary Athayde. “The Identification and Measurement of Innovative Characteristics of Young People: Development of the Youth Innovation Skills Measurement Tool.” NESTA Research Report, 2009. Web.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: N.N. Norton & Company, 1999. Print.
McCrossen, Alexis. “The “Very Delicate Construction” of the Pocket Watches and Time Consciousness in the Nineteenth-Century United States.” Winter Portfolio 44.1 (2010): 1-30. Print.