On-Cloud Healthcare Clinic: An e-health consultancy approach for remote communities in a developing country

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Shah J. Miah^a ; ^{shah.miah@vu.edu.au" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Jahidul Hasan^b ; John G. Gammack^c
• 关键词：Healthcare model ; Rural healthcare ; e-health ; Cloud computing ; Developing countries ; Patients
• 刊名：Telematics and Informatics
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：34
• 期：1
• 页码：311-322
• 全文大小：600 K

文摘

Advances in telecommunication and online service solutions help to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban healthcare services, enabling provision of suitable medical diagnosis and treatment consultations. Although applying e-health solutions has brought some positive impact full potential has not yet been realised, especially in regions where expertise is scarce. In this study we develop and evaluate an e-health consultancy system utilizing cloud computing (we so called “On-Cloud Healthcare Clinic”) that enables doctors and healthcare workers to identify and treat non-communicable diseases in rural and remote communities in Bangladesh, a developing nation.

Adopting a design science research approach we developed the solution based around stakeholders’ collaborative participation in prototyping and then evaluated the design using focus groups. The cloud-based solution supports doctors in evaluating and diagnosing patients’ data and medical history through intermediary health care workers or community clinics. The design also knowledgeably allows informed decisions on a course of treatment with follow up for remote or underserved communities. Previously unavailable clinical work is thus practically achieved through utilization of the cloud based e-health system, and generalisation of this approach in healthcare management is discussed.