Build Health International

Build Health International is focused on providing equitable healthcare infrastructure in vulnerable communities around the world and collaborating with partners to amplify the  impact on global health. BHI works with NGOs, ministries of health, and local communities to plan, design, equip, and oversee the construction of healthcare facilities in low-resource settings that are functional, sustainable and energy efficient. Our mission focuses on elevating opportunities and creating dignified, sustainable, and equitable healthcare spaces for all individuals, regardless of their location or economic status. By leveraging our expertise building in some of the world’s most resource-constrained areas, we also work with partners to elevate advocacy issues, drive awareness, and increase engagement around critical health and environmental outcomes including renewable energy and oxygen.

Elevate Prize funding and participation would enable BHI to build strategic capacity and organizationally scale to meet the high project demand. Prize funding would also allow us to expand business development efforts, engage new NGO and in-kind partners, and provide resources, training or support to our existing partners to realize project feasibility and monitor outcomes. Joining The Elevate Challenge Winners and Solve Community would help tell the BHI story and share impact across sectors.

Growing up in a progressive family, my siblings focused on social and political action while I talked my way into work as a carpenter. That started a long adventure in the construction industry that led me to establish Shawmut Design and Construction. After I sold Shawmut to the employees, my wife and I became very involved with international development. On travels with our children, 3 of whom were adopted from South America, I began to reflect upon key disparities I saw firsthand. Looking for  a meaningful use of new-found freetime, I really struggled with the immense poverty, injustice and inequality in Haiti. In 2009, Dr. David Walton reached out about building a community hospital in Haiti and we began working on a 100-bed hospital in Mirebalais. In 2010, the earthquake struck Haiti and the need became even greater. The hospital was finally completed in 2013 and through that process we made numerous mistakes and learned valuable lessons. That journey inspired us to reimagine global health and led to the creation of BHI. Our vision is an equitable health future, where clinicians have the resources they need to deliver high-quality healthcare to all, regardless of location or patients’ ability to pay.

Build Health International addresses the distinctive challenges of building healthcare infrastructure in under-resourced settings. We provide innovative design solutions, cost-effective resourcing and sustainable building practices coupled with the relationships that drive operations, medical education, and longevity for these facilities in the future. 

One complex issue is energy accessibility in hospitals. For example in Niger, where access to reliable energy is scarce and sunlight is abundant, BHI equipped a hospital with a 400 panel solar grid. According to the WHO, in Africa only 28% of health facilities and 34% of hospitals have reliable access to energy. 

We are currently designing and building a treatment center and BSL-3 Laboratory in Peru for Tuberculosis, the world’s single most deadly infectious disease, leading to over 4,000 deaths per day. 

Sierra Leone is among countries with the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Women face a 1 in 20 lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth versus 1 in 5,800 in the United States. BHI is partnering to build a new Maternal Center of Excellence with 10 buildings and 143 beds to make quality biomedical equipment and highly trained clinical staff more accessible in the region—preventing as many maternal deaths as possible.

Build Health International works at the intersection of architecture, engineering, construction, operational consulting, and global health. We collaborate and cohesively partner with one another, making projects more effective and efficient. 

We leverage new technologies to advance healthcare in some of the most challenging regions of the world. Capitalizing on natural resources, renewable energy, and training local labor, in each project we seek out opportunities to maximize the tools that are readily at our disposal while employing the latest technology in innovative ways to do the most good. This includes using Matterport cameras to conduct site assessments of clinics or utilizing Tesla batteries to run oxygen concentrators and powering energy through solar. Bringing together over 30 NGO Partners and 20 ministries of health, we are working on the local and global level to enhance impact. 

Simultaneously, BHI is trying to address impact beyond the immediate work we do. One continuous challenge is disseminating the lessons we learn to other organizations—to grow the field of global health infrastructure. We are currently working with universities on a range of projects so that students at the forefront of their academic training can begin to interface with best practices in architecture, engineering, design and medicine.

We start on the ground floor with potential partners to provide a multidisciplinary approach. While quality healthcare is our goal, our work transcends across economic development, cultural awareness, political challenges, racial sensitivities and social justice around the world. From clinical planning to architectural design and building construction to facilities maintenance, it is important for us to provide the communities where we work with resilient and robust infrastructure solutions they need to deliver compassionate, dignified healthcare.  

Beginning with architecture and engineering concepts, we bring teams together to analyze project plans, projected impact on the local community, potential challenges, budgets and regional expertise. We also engage the local communities to solicit input regarding what they see as the biggest needs. We discuss additional local partners, facilitate introductions in-country and talk about training or residency plans, long-term funding and operational sustainability. This cross communication between all layers of the project allows us to gain insight into barriers to improving health systems, draw on our past experiences to direct partners in the right direction and at times realign a project to somewhere it is better suited.