Publications by authors named "Krishna Udayakumar"

The African continent demonstrated decisive leadership throughout its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging lessons learned from previous outbreaks and acting quickly to limit the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We propose a framework to build on these successes that calls for greater collaboration between African leaders, and greater inclusion of African voices in the global health ecosystem.

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The slow progress in malaria control efforts and increasing challenges have prompted a need to accelerate the research and development (R&D), launch and scaling of effective interventions for malaria elimination. This research, including desk research and key informant interviews, identified the following challenges along the end-to-end scale-up pathway of malaria interventions. Underinvestment in malaria R&D persists, and developers from low-resource settings are not commonly included in the R&D process.

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Over the next decade, millions of deaths could be prevented by increasing access to vaccines in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the research and development (R&D), launch and scale up timelines of vaccines can be drastically shortened. This study compares such timelines for eighteen vaccines and identifies lessons and implications for accelerating the R&D, launch and scale up process for other vaccine candidates.

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The COVID-19 vaccination is a crucial public health intervention for controlling the spread and severity of the SARS-CoV2 virus. COVID-19 vaccines have been developed in record time, but their deployment has varied across countries, owing to differences in health system capacity, demand for the vaccine, and purchasing power of countries. The aim of this rapid review is to summarize and synthesize experiences on COVID-19 vaccine service delivery and integration to inform future COVID-19 vaccination programming and contribute to the knowledge base for future pandemic management.

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Donor financing is increasingly relying on performance-based measures that demonstrate impact. As new technologies and interventions enter the innovation space to address global health challenges, innovators often need to model their potential impact prior to obtaining solid effectiveness data. Diverse stakeholders rely on impact modeling data to make key funding and scaling decisions.

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say that a new, urgent push for global vaccine equity could help avert suffering and deaths, protect economies, and prevent new virus variants

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The Saving Lives at Birth (SL@B) funding partners joined in 2011 to source, support, and scale maternal and newborn health (MNH) innovations to improve maternal and newborn survival by focusing on the 24 hours around the time of birth. A multi-methods, retrospective portfolio evaluation was conducted to determine SL@B's impact. Forty semi-structured, key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted with experts in global MNH based in low- and middle-income and in high-income countries to assess the SL@B program.

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Over the past decade the Ministry of Health of Nepal and the nonprofit Possible have partnered to deliver primary and secondary health care via a public-private partnership. We applied an accountable care framework that we previously developed to describe the delivery of their integrated reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health services in the Achham district in rural Nepal. In a prospective pre-post study, examining pregnancies at baseline and 541 pregnancies in follow-up over the course of eighteen months, we found an improvement in population-level indicators linked to reducing maternal and infant mortality: receipt of four antenatal care visits (83 percent to 90 percent), institutional birth rate (81 percent to 93 percent), and the prevalence of postpartum contraception (19 percent to 47 percent).

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In a 2015 global study of low-cost or frugal innovations, we identified five leading innovations that scaled successfully in their original contexts and that may provide insights for scaling such innovations in the United States. We describe common themes among these diverse innovations, critical factors for their translation to the United States to improve the efficiency and quality of health care, and lessons for the implementation and scaling of other innovations. We highlight promising trends in the United States that support adapting these innovations, including growing interest in moving care out of health care facilities and into community and home settings; the growth of alternative payment models and incentives to experiment with new approaches to population health and care delivery; and the increasing use of diverse health professionals, such as community health workers and advanced practice providers.

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Policy makers and providers are under increasing pressure to find innovative approaches to achieving better health outcomes as efficiently as possible. Accountable care, which holds providers accountable for results rather than specific services, is emerging in many countries to support such care innovations. However, these reforms are challenging and complex to implement, requiring significant policy and delivery changes.

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The rising prevalence, health burden, and cost of chronic diseases such as diabetes have accelerated global interest in innovative care models that use approaches such as community-based care and information technology to improve or transform disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Although evidence on the effectiveness of innovative care models is emerging, scaling up or extending these models beyond their original setting has been difficult. We developed a framework to highlight policy barriers-institutional, regulatory, and financial-to the diffusion of transformative innovations in diabetes care.

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Background: The use of evidence-based therapies has improved the outcome of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), but there is a time lag between the generation of clinical evidence and its application in routine clinical practice. We sought to quantify temporal lags in the lifecycle of American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) class IA ACS therapies.

Methods: Using current and historical ACC/AHA guideline publications, we retrieved publication dates of pivotal clinical trials (PCTs) and class IA guideline-recommended therapies for patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and unstable angina (UA)/non-STEMI (NSTEMI).

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Background: Facing critically low return per dollar invested on clinical research and clinical care, the American biomedical enterprise is in need of a significant transformation. A confluence of high-throughput "omic" technologies and increasing adoption of the electronic health record has fueled excitement for a new paradigm for biomedical research and practice. The ability to simultaneously measure thousands of molecular variables and assess their relationships with clinical data collected during the course of care could enable reclassification of disease not only by gross phenotypic observation but according to underlying molecular mechanism and influence of social determinants.

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Despite multiple available effective therapies for hypertension, many patients with high blood pressure in the United States are not adequately controlled. This inability to effectively manage hypertension can be attributed to patient, provider, and system failures. To create an effective model for hypertension management, current care delivery systems must be reorganized around the following principles: improved patient engagement and patient-provider communication, increased use of nonphysician providers, better performance monitoring and feedback systems, and better aligned reimbursement models.

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Globalization is having a growing impact on health and health care, presenting challenges as well as opportunities for the U.S. health care industry in general and for academic health science systems (AHSSs) in particular.

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The rapidly changing field of medicine demands that future physician-leaders excel not only in clinical medicine but also in the management of complex health care enterprises. However, many physicians have become leaders "by accident," and the active cultivation of future leaders is required. Addressing this need will require multiple approaches, targeting trainees at various stages of their careers, such as degree-granting programs, residency and fellowship training, and career and leadership development programs.

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Recent discussions in health reform circles have pinned great hopes on the prospect of innovation as the solution to the high-cost, inadequate-quality U.S. health system.

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Objectives: This study examined the incremental cost-effectiveness of extending clopidogrel therapy from one month to one year after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in an unselected, heterogeneous patient population.

Background: Clinical trials suggest that prolonging clopidogrel therapy for up to one year after PCI reduces downstream cardiac events. However, clopidogrel therapy is costly and may increase bleeding risk.

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