Throughout history humanity has been plagued by a myriad of humanitarian crises that seemingly
take the form of perpetual human suffering. Today approximately 125 000 000 people require
humanitarian assistance as the result of famine war geopolitical conflict and natural
disasters. A core component of this suffering is afflictions related to human health where
disturbances strain or overwhelm the existing healthcare infrastructure to create the
conditions for an increase in morbidities and co-morbidities. One of the more startling
elements is the loss of life to preventable medical conditions that were not properly treated
or even diagnosed in the field and is often due to the limited interventional capacity that
medical teams and humanitarian practitioners have in these scenarios. These individuals are
often hindered by medical equipment deficiencies or devices not meant to function in austere
conditions. The development of highly versatile feasible and cost-effective medical devices
and technologies that can be deployed in the field is essential to enhancing medical care in
unconventional settings. In this book we examine the nature of the creative problem-solving
paradigm and dissect the intersection of frugal disruptive open and reverse innovation
processes in advancing humanitarian medicine. Specifically we examine the feasible deployment
of these devices and technologies in unconventional environments not only by humanitarian aid
and disaster relief agencies but also by crisis-affected communities themselves. The challenge
is complex but the financial support and technical development of innovative solutions for the
delivery of humanitarian aid is a process in which everyone is a stakeholder.
