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Mobile Telemedicine Implementation with WiMAX Technology: A Case Study of Ghana

  • Mobile Systems
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Abstract

Telemedicine has become an effective means of delivering quality healthcare in the world. Across the African continent, Telemedicine is increasingly being recognized as a way of improving access to quality healthcare. The use of technology to deliver quality healthcare has been demonstrated as an effective way of overcoming geographic barriers to healthcare in pilot Telemedicine projects in certain parts of Kumasi, Ghana. However because of poor network connectivity experienced in the pilot projects, the success of the pilot networks could not be extended to cover the whole city of Kumasi and other surrounding villages. Fortunately, recent deployment of WiMAX in Ghana has delivered higher data rates at longer distances with improved network connectivity. This paper examines the feasibility of using WiMAX in deploying a city wide Mobile Telemedicine solution. The network architecture and network parameter simulations of the proposed Mobile Telemedicine network using WiMAX are presented. Five WiMAX Base Stations have been suggested to give ubiquitous coverage to the proposed Mobile Telemedicine sites in the network using adaptive 4 × 4 MIMO antenna configurations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Eric Tutu Tchao

  2. Department of Electrical/Electronic Engineering, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana

    Kwasi Diawuo

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering Technology, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Lehman, PA, USA

    Willie K. Ofosu

Authors
  1. Eric Tutu Tchao
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  2. Kwasi Diawuo
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  3. Willie K. Ofosu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Tutu Tchao.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Mobile Systems

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Tchao, E.T., Diawuo, K. & Ofosu, W.K. Mobile Telemedicine Implementation with WiMAX Technology: A Case Study of Ghana. J Med Syst 41, 17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-016-0661-8

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