Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System

Ashir AHMED; Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE; Yasunobu NOHARA; Eiko KAI; Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON; Naoki NAKASHIMA

doi:10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540

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Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System

Ashir AHMED, Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE, Yasunobu NOHARA, Eiko KAI, Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON, Naoki NAKASHIMA

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Summary :

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.

Publication: IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications Vol.E97-B No.3 pp.540-545

Publication Date: 2014/03/01

Publicized

Online ISSN: 1745-1345

DOI: 10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540

Type of Manuscript: Special Section INVITED PAPER (Special Section on Information and Communication Technology for Medical and Healthcare Applications in Conjunction with Main Topics of ISMICT2013)

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Authors

Ashir AHMED
  Kyushu University
Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE
  Kyushu University
Yasunobu NOHARA
  Kyushu University Hospital
Eiko KAI
  Kyushu University
Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON
  Grameen Communications
Naoki NAKASHIMA
  Kyushu University Hospital

Keyword

Portable Health Clinic, e-Health, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Telemedicine, e-Prescription, Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS)

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Ashir AHMED, Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE, Yasunobu NOHARA, Eiko KAI, Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON, Naoki NAKASHIMA, "Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications, vol. E97-B, no. 3, pp. 540-545, March 2014, doi: 10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540.
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.
URL: https://globals.ieice.org/en_transactions/communications/10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540/_p

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@ARTICLE{e97-b_3_540,
author={Ashir AHMED, Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE, Yasunobu NOHARA, Eiko KAI, Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON, Naoki NAKASHIMA, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications},
title={Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System},
year={2014},
volume={E97-B},
number={3},
pages={540-545},
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.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540},
ISSN={1745-1345},
month={March},}

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TY - JOUR
TI - Targeting Morbidity in Unreached Communities Using Portable Health Clinic System
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications
SP - 540
EP - 545
AU - Ashir AHMED
AU - Andrew REBEIRO-HARGRAVE
AU - Yasunobu NOHARA
AU - Eiko KAI
AU - Zahidul HOSSEIN RIPON
AU - Naoki NAKASHIMA
PY - 2014
DO - 10.1587/transcom.E97.B.540
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications
SN - 1745-1345
VL - E97-B
IS - 3
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications
Y1 - March 2014
AB - 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.
ER -