OASES is the name of a project aiming to enhance emergency care in so-called “healthcare deserts”—remote regions of the world where limited access to hospitals and a shortage of specialised medical personnel hinder the availability of timely and quality healthcare. This research initiative is now supported by a crowdfunding campaign launched by the University of Milano-Bicocca as part of the 7th edition of its BiUniCrowd programme.
OASES (Organization for the Advancement and Support of Emergency Systems) is a research project focused on developing an innovative digital platform to assist less experienced healthcare workers during triage, diagnosis, and treatment of the most common acute illnesses in low-resource settings. The pilot implementation will take place at the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital in Kalongo, a 286-bed referral hospital in a remote rural area of Northern Uganda, supported by the Ambrosoli Foundation.
Thanks to the University’s BiUniCrowd programme, selected research projects are financed by involving civil society, institutions, and businesses through crowdfunding on Ideaginger.it, the most successful platform of its kind in Italy. Funds raised for the OASES project will support the development of the digital platform, the purchase of tablets for the emergency department staff at Kalongo hospital, and a mission to Uganda by a team of doctors and nurses for on-site implementation and training. Shortly after launch, the campaign has already exceeded its initial target of €10,000, thanks to strong support from the public. The team now aims for a new ambitious milestone: an additional €10,000 will enable the project to scale up by training and equipping more healthcare workers, assisting more patients, and spreading an innovative model of care.
“Today, around two billion people lack access to essential emergency care simply because they live in rural and remote areas. In these ‘healthcare deserts’, rural hospitals are often the only point of contact for local communities. However, with few specialist doctors and no advanced diagnostic tools, they struggle to provide timely and quality care,” explains project leader Lucrezia Rovati, an emergency medicine doctor and PhD student in Public Health at the University of Milano-Bicocca. The digital platform will be developed in collaboration with the University’s Department of Computer Science and will consist of a tablet- and smartphone-based app designed to be intuitive, low-cost, and effective even in areas with limited infrastructure.
Using decision support algorithms based on World Health Organization protocols, the app will guide less experienced healthcare workers through clinical assessments in emergency rooms, recommending diagnostic tests and treatments for common conditions such as malaria, respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, and road traffic injuries. The app will also automatically collect clinical data during emergency visits, supporting healthcare quality improvement, epidemic surveillance, and scientific research—even in the most remote locations.
Each donation will directly improve emergency care in healthcare deserts. Eni, a MUSA partner (sponsor of BiUniCrowd), has chosen to support OASES.
OASES is designed to be scalable and sustainable: following the pilot in Kalongo, the digital platform could be easily adapted to similar healthcare settings, including other hospitals affiliated with the Bicocca Global Health Center in Uganda and Tanzania.
The OASES project is led by a multidisciplinary team of 14 professionals with expertise in emergency medicine, paediatrics, gynaecology, public health, biostatistics, nursing, and digital health. Team members include Lucrezia Rovati, Michele Bombelli, Benedetta Canova, Elena Targetti, Marco Bettina, Fausto Fazzini, Daniele Privitera, Benedetta Pessina, Francesca Bonadei, Luigi De Vitis, Eugenia Alleva, Vittoria Vergani, Luisa Sarno, and Francesca Mapelli.
At the end of the crowdfunding campaign, donors will receive a small gift made by the local Kalongo community and will be invited to a presentation conference hosted by the Luigi Rovati Foundation in Milan, a partner in the initiative.