Development of Smartphone App for Tele-Care Medicine

Abstract

Many of the countries in the world are having the doctor to patient ratio far below than the prescribed number. Most of the developed countries also have serious health care issues in their rural areas because of the lesser density of physicians in such places. Despite this, information technology and mobile communication devices are growing rapidly. This technology has been successfully tapped by online shopping business giants. If the same technology is extended effectively to health care applications, then the world-wide scarcity of medical practitioners would be improved so that the larger wait of outpatients in the hospitals can be reduced. To serve this purpose, we developed mobile phone application software for Android devices. There are two separate apps; one for the doctor and another to the patient. Without the traditional method of consultations between the patient and the doctor, many health problems can be treated by monitoring the vital signs through these mobile apps. The software allows attaching medical images also along with the vital signs as text values. The medical data can be sent to the selected doctor by the patient through the web, after logging into the app. The doctor can suggest the course of treatment by typing the text in his app. Both apps were tested for their performance and security issues.