Innovation in a crisis: Emergency Smart Pod

Winner of the USAID Fighting Ebola Grand Challenge

The Emergency Smart Pod, Designed in the wake of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, is a deployable clinic with all of the advantages of a modern hospital.

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa more than 11,000 people died and almost 30,000 were diagnosed with this fatal virus. Liberia was one of three countries at the epicenter of this epidemic. Ebola dealt a fatal blow to a health system that was still recovering from seven years of civil strife and that saw hundred of thousands of people killed.

This video depicts the challenges the country faced when confronted with Ebola through interviews with survivors and front line health personnel. The film also highlights the Emergency Smart Pod, one of 14 innovations that was invested in for accelerated development, testing, and scale up through USAID's Fighting Ebola Grand Challenge. Developed by Baylor College of Medicine, the Emergency Smart Pod is a rapidly deployable and scalable treatment unit that can function in an epidemic or natural disaster as well as for routine care.

They can serve as primary care clinics, surgery centers, hospitals, and laboratory facilities or be easily and quickly transported anywhere in the world for an immediate response to global disasters.

Each Smart Pod can be shipped directly to its destination by boat, truck or air, and assembled in less than five minutes with a team of four. The structures are lightweight and eco-friendly, and can be customized for integration into various cultural communities.