CINQ 387 Blog 7

Conner Calzone, Tiffany Pang

World Hope International

1. 1. WHI is a multi-national non-profit dedicated to alleviating global poverty and improving global health, has been instrumental in providing access to resources and facilitating networking opportunities within Sierra Leone during our team’s developmental phase.
   2. They are actively stationed in countries including Liberia, Haiti and other Sub-Saharan African countries.
   3. Following integration into large hospitals, WHI has interests aligned with our goal to develop education and screening programs for Peripheral Health Units (PHUs) in peri-urban and rural areas
   4. Responsible for developing Community Health Worker (CHW) systems in the Bombali, Tonkolili, and Kareneh districts of Sierra Leone and have excellent ground network to integrate sickle cell education and testing into PHUs and these CHWs work with

We would like to work with WHI to leverage their social capital and their political capital. They have allowed us to access their office space and other practical resources within Sierra Leone, which they split the risks with us to help us advance our venture forward. In return, as a symbiotic relationship, we provide passionate goals to innovate impact and implementation of our device, while at the same time, having the ability to conduct in-field research with evidence based approaches. Since WHI will serve as a significant partner to help establish our venture after launch, we must strengthen this partnership by connecting with someone internally within the organization, to have larger discussions about what needs to be done in order to have the device implemented successfully.

 

Sickle Cell Careers Awareness Network (SCCAN)

1. 1. SCCAN is an organization that aims to raise awareness about SCD, treatment and prevention while also offering practical support for those with SCD.
   2. Our team aims to collaborate with SCCAN through SCD treatment efforts. We could reimburse the profits of our product into SCCAN for penicillin prophylaxis and hydroxyurea supplements.
   3. We are part of a coalition working together towards a common goal

With SCCAN we have a symbiotic relationship as they provide the legal cover for our ventures in the country since they are legal organizations as a nonprofit and we can serve as their partners. We bring specific areas of expertise that the organization may not have, bring in fresh ideas and bring in passionate people power. Overall, we have the ability to go out and innovate with evidence based approaches. The team currently doesn’t have close collaboration with someone who is a part of this organization, so in order to strengthen that, we must find contact with someone internally to keep constant contact with in order to see how they can offer support to our venture.

 

Dr. Cheedy Jaja

1. 1. Interests aligns with our goals: currently is researching sickle cell disease (SCD), pharmacogenetics and health care disparities.
   2. Has built excellent relationships with relevant stakeholders in Sierra Leone and created partnerships with SCD patient advocacy groups to organize and conduct community advocacy campaigns to increase SCD education and awareness.
   3. Is a PI for the Sierra Leone Sickle Cell Disease Data Collection Project with an approved IRB surveillance and support from the US Department Fulbright Scholar.
   4. Is an expert SCD consultant on the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation Sickle Cell Disease Technical Working Group. The group is currently developing guidelines for clinical management of SCD in Sierra Leone. He represents Sierra Leone on the African Newborn Screening and Early Intervention Consortium.
   5. He has assembled a multidisciplinary team with expertise in multiple areas (nursing science, hematology, implementation science, public health, qualitative methods, and epidemiology) pertinent for successful execution of our proposed study
   6. Our team has been in contact with Dr. Cheedy Jaja and we have developed a plan to begin alpha testing using his patient’s blood under his IRB approval. Our team and Dr. Jaja have similar goals and can use each other’s partnership beneficially.

With Dr. Cheedy Jaja, it is a symbiotic partnership where working with him will expand his connections and relationships with our team and possibly lead up to connecting us with key partners he has established (being the link to other sources). We have been keeping close contact with Dr. Cheedy Jaja, but what could strengthen our relationship is that we can continue to update him with our venture’s plan and where we stand right now, so he could offer advice or suggestions.

 

Dr. Ranju Gupta

1. 1. A local hematologist who works with sickle cell patients at Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) for laboratory testing of sickle cell blood samples to determine the device’s accuracy in the current developmental phase. 
   2. Also, looking to receive HbS blood samples from LVHN in the near future

We have a symbiotic relationship with Dr. Ranju Gupta, who provides the validation of our device’s stage for early clinical trials and brings credibility to our device, while we help to expand his connections and participation in SCD-related projects like ours. We can strengthen our with Dr. Ranju Gupta by constantly checking up on him through email and asking about what is the current outlook on SCD patients he’s had so far.

 

Local Blood Bank in Bethlehem

1. 1. Providing us with purified blood samples
      1. Currently we are only approved to accept healthy (HbA) blood samples from the bank, but we aim to accept SCD (HbS) blood from them as well
      2. This relationship is not necessarily symbiotic as we do not provide much value to them, but we do not ask much for them and they generously help us

The local blood banks in a way, provided us validation of our device during the clinical trials stage as we need to test our device with real blood to see if it is functioning as planned.

Although the relationship is not symbiotic, as a team we could establish a stronger partnership with them by letting them know what the blood samples are being used for and when we run low on stock, we could become one of their recipients on their database that commonly requests for blood samples.