Ideas worth spreading

The most powerful untapped resource in health care

1,761,517 views | Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam • TED2022

Whether we're rushing a child to the emergency room after a fall or making chicken soup for a feverish spouse, love inspires us to act when a family member gets sick. Global health activists Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam believe we can harness this power to create better health outcomes for everyone. Learn how their organization Noora Health works with doctors and nurses in India and Bangladesh to train the family members of hospital patients with essential skills to support their sick loved ones -- and how they plan to expand their reach to support 70 million caregivers who care for more than one billion people over the next six years. (This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

Whether we're rushing a child to the emergency room after a fall or making chicken soup for a feverish spouse, love inspires us to act when a family member gets sick. Global health activists Edith Elliott and Shahed Alam believe we can harness this power to create better health outcomes for everyone. Learn how their organization Noora Health works with doctors and nurses in India and Bangladesh to train the family members of hospital patients with essential skills to support their sick loved ones -- and how they plan to expand their reach to support 70 million caregivers who care for more than one billion people over the next six years. (This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about Noora Health's plan to train family caregivers to help their loved ones heal.

About the speakers

Edith Elliott

Global health activist

See speaker profile

Edith Elliott believes that the best solutions in global health are often the simplest — and the most overlooked.

Shahed Alam

Global health activist

See speaker profile

Shahed Alam teaches patients and their caregivers skills that can improve clinical outcomes, provide care and save lives.

Tracy Kidder | Random House Publishing Group, 2004 | Book

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Powerfully portrays how accompaniment in health care can save lives.

Paul Kalanithi | Vintage, 2017 | Book

When Breath Becomes Air

A beautiful illustration of what happens when the provider and the patient roles are flipped, and how empathetic caregiving through difficult moments is a primal part of the human experience.

Ann S. Kim and Priya Giri Desai, 2017 | Watch

Love Sick

This documentary film chronicles how one doctor helped her HIV+ patients find love, offering insightful commentary on how we need to think outside the box of the health system to ensure the happiness and wellbeing of patients.

Devi Shetty | TEDxGateway, 2013 | Watch

"It's not a solution if it's not affordable"

We're inspired by the visionary work of cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty and highly recommend his TEDx Talk. A decade ago, he welcomed our founders to his hospital in India as a sandbox for innovation in bringing families to the center of care.

Iqbal Dhaliwal, John Floretta and Sam Friedlander | Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2020 | Article

"Beyond Randomized Controlled Trials"

This article describes the importance of evidence to inform social policy.

Tim Brown | HarperBusiness, 2009 | Book

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

Explores how design thinking and human-centered design principles — a keystone of Noora's approach — can change the way health care is delivered.

Anne Fadiman | Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997 | Book

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

Showcases the need for empathy in spaces where cultures collide. Regardless of the competing cultural norms, this story is about a family and doctors coming together to serve a patient's needs — and it doesn't get more Noora than that.

Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about Noora Health's plan to train family caregivers to help their loved ones heal.