Issue:
The world turned upside down
Rubric:
The charms of frugal innovation
Location:
Main image:
201016srd002.jpg
GENERAL ELECTRIC'S health-care laboratory in Bangalore contains some of the company's most sophisticated products—from giant body scanners that can accommodate the bulkiest American football players to state-of-the-art intensive-care units that can nurse the tiniest premature babies. But the device that has captured the heart of the centre's boss, Ashish Shah, is much less fancy: a hand-held electrocardiogram (ECG) called the Mac 400.
The device is a masterpiece of simplification. The multiple buttons on conventional ECGs have been reduced to just four. The bulky printer has been replaced by one of those tiny gadgets used in portable ticket machines. The whole thing is small enough to fit into a small backpack and can run on batteries as well as on the mains. This miracle of compression sells for $800, instead of $2,000 for a conventional ECG, and has reduced the cost of an ECG test to just $1 per patient.
In Chennai, 200 miles (326km) farther east, Ananth Krishnan, ...
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