IEICE Transactions on Communications
Online ISSN : 1745-1345
Print ISSN : 0916-8516
Special Section on Information and Communication Technology for Medical and Healthcare Applications in Conjunction with Main Topics of ISMICT2013
Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System
Ashir AHMEDAndrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVEYasunobu NOHARAEiko KAIZahidul HOSSEIN RIPONNaoki NAKASHIMA
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2014 Volume E97.B Issue 3 Pages 540-545

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Abstract

This study looks at how an e-Health System can reduce morbidity (poor health) in unreached communities. The e-Health system combines affordable sensors and Body Area Networking technology with mobile health concepts and is called a Portable Health Clinic. The health clinic is portable because all the medical devices fit inside a briefcase and are carried to unreached communities by a healthcare assistants. Patient morbidity is diagnosed using software stratification algorithm and categorized according to triage color-coding scheme within the briefcase. Morbid patients are connected to remote doctor in a telemedicine call center using the mobile network coverage. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are used for the medical consultancy and e-Prescription is generated. The effectiveness of the portable health clinic system to target morbidity was tested on 8690 patients in rural and urban areas of Bangladesh during September 2012 to January 2013. There were two phases to the experiment: the first phase identified the intensity of morbidity and the second phase re-examined the morbid patients, two months later. The experiment results show a decrease in patients to identify as morbid among those who participated in telemedicine process.

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© 2014 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
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