Remote Healthcare Applications With Smartphones In Developing Countries Jeffrey Tse Mentors: Gloria Mark, Dani Massaguer University of California, Irvine

Lack of Quality Healthcare Systems In Developing Countries  Shortage of medical professionals and hospitals  Patients must travel long distances to gain access to healthcare  Patients fail to receive continuous care  Communication issues often arise between the doctor and patients

Rise of Mobile Phones In Underprivileged Regions  2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world in contrast to the 11 million hospital beds  Mobile phone technology has cheaper, more powerful, and more accessible  Mobile network coverage is becoming more widespread Source: Vodafone Foundation

Adoption of Smartphones for Healthcare Applications  Smartphones can assist health professionals when diagnosing, treating, or monitoring a patient  Minimize patient traveling for health services  Storage and exchange of patient information  Avoid confusion or miscommunication between doctors and patients

Minimizing Patient Traveling for Health Services  Remote diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients via virtualized medical devices and smartphones  Virtualized Medical Devices: Portable biosensors that interface with smartphones  Smartphones act as a general purpose computing device

Integration of Portable Biosensors with Smartphones Figure 2: AliveCor ECG Figure 3: Withings Body Scale Figure 4: Withings Blood Pressure Monitor

Storing and Transmitting Patient Information  Easy access and management of patients’ medical records improves quality and continuity of care received by patients  Exchanging of patient information with other clinics/hospitals and health professionals also improves quality of healthcare services

Preventing Communication Issues Between Doctors and Patients  3D avatars of the human body assist health professionals  An interactive avatar  Views of the different physiological systems of the human body  Avatar resembles patients’ body allowing doctors to pinpoint regions of pain felt by the patient by clicking a region on the avatar’s body

Interactive 3D Avatar of the Human Body Figure 1: Google Body Browser

VirTelMed Smartphone Application  Development of an intuitive mobile healthcare application that incorporates biosensors and the 3D avatar to tackle existing healthcare issues in developing countries

Future Implementations  Social networking like feature to allow users to post health concerns/questions  Upload photos taken by smartphone camera to a private gallery

Testing  Affiliation with Global Medical Training connects us with physicians in developing countries  Joining GMT organized trips to underdeveloped countries  Recently received IRB approval to perform users studies here at UCI  Advisory board consisting of researchers and physicians all over the world

Global Medical Training

Conclusion  Adopting the use of smartphones for healthcare applications in developing countries has the potential to:  Decrease traveling done by patients  Improve informational continuity  Avoid communication problems between patients and doctors  Improves BOTH domestic health care systems as well as healthcare systems abroad

End  Thank You!  Questions?