Exploring the case for oxygen concentrators and Oxygen-as-a-Service with our evidence framework
Our goal at the Oxygen CoLab is to understand and make the case for oxygen concentrators and service-based models as a delivery solution alongside other ways of providing medical oxygen to patients at lower-levels of healthcare across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Oxygen concentrators are small, portable devices that can create medical oxygen from the air, and are proven to save lives when implemented properly. Service-based models mean that these concentrators come with additional training, repair, maintenance and backup options. Health facilities can pay for the oxygen they receive, rather than investing in equipment that may break down and vendors have ongoing accountability. We call this Oxygen-as-a-Service (O2aaS).
Click here for more information on how the CoLab has worked to understand the challenges in making oxygen accessible, reliable and affordable, as well as how we’ve begun incubating a set of innovative solutions to these challenges.
We already have valuable learning from our past work in India, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, but in this post we are setting out what we want to learn going forward, and how we are investing in data collection and analysis.
If you want much more detail, 👉 this deck 👈 contains our full evidence framework.
The Oxygen CoLab Evidence Framework
As you can see from the diagram above, we want to build evidence on how fit for purpose concentrators and O2aaS models can fill a gap in medical oxygen access, and use that evidence to help governments and donors in their efforts to make oxygen accessible, reliable and affordable for those who need it most at lower-levels of health.
We’re not alone in experimenting with new products and services, nor are we the first to provide evidence about where they might work most appropriately. But it’s our hope that our evidence framework will help us complement the rigorous research that is already underway by others in the oxygen space, to build a better shared understanding of what works, where, and when.
To do this we are working with a range of brilliant grantees who are innovating O2aaS models and gathering evidence in 62 facilities across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and India.
You can read more about our portfolio here and here.
These pilots are deepening our collective understanding about what works, where, and how across the following four different facility types:
We are also supporting research and development and lab testing on new or improved products. The evidence we build will come from these 62 facilities, and our research and lab testing work, as well as some secondary research.
The kind of evidence we’ll be collecting
With our evidence framework, we will collect data about:
- Patient access to oxygen
- The added-value and availability of products, and services
- Financing and demand for products and services
- The policy enabling environment
We hope this data is going to tell us a few things about concentrators and O2aaS:
- Where and at what types of facilities are concentrators best placed to increase access to oxygen, compared to other delivery mechanisms?
- What is the cost, energy consumption, usability, repairability and resilience of fit-for-purpose concentrators in different contexts?
- What is the total cost of ownership and reliability of fit-for-purpose concentrators, and how does it compare to existing concentrators, cylinders, and other delivery solutions?
- What is the cost, reliability, and clinical and operational fit, of O2aaS models? What types of products and service models work best, where?
- Could suppliers provide concentrators, fit for purpose concentrators, and O2aaS reasonably sustainably, to lower risk of investment/purchase?
- Will governments buy these products and services? Is there a reasonable enabling environment for market growth?
These are things which we think governments, investors, manufacturers and funders might want to know. For example, if a government is deciding how to integrate concentrators into its national oxygen strategy, it will want to know what types of facility and environment is a concentrator right for (where a PSA plant won’t work as well), and how much would it cost comparatively to PSA in locations where they could both conceivably work.
How we’ll use that evidence
We hope to create compelling, evidence backed stories that support global, national and local decision makers as they fund, procure, and use concentrators and service-based models to increase access to oxygen.
We would like people to see from our data that new products and models have the potential to work — that they can be reliable, cost effective over time, and increase efficiency in the system. We would like people to believe that new models are possible to implement, by showcasing the achievements of others in transitioning health systems to new products or service-based models.
We hope our evidence can stimulate the ongoing collective conversation about oxygen delivery and health systems strengthening. The Oxygen CoLab will only supply one small piece of the evidence needed for that conversation — and one that is stronger on practical, real world insights than on methodologically rigorous experiments. We think the case will be stronger, and seen as more credible, if we gather and analyse our collective evidence together.
Please get in touch with us if you’d like to work together to share knowledge and explore the evidence for oxygen concentrators and service-based models together. You can email oxygen@makingbetterfutures.org.
