Necessity is surely the mother of all innovation. The Story of eMusawo a telemedicine platform that seeks to redefine the role of technological innovations in improving the quality of health care in uganda as told by Denis Tumuhaise
About eMusawo
eMusawo National Telemedicine Platform and Portal is a registered innovative low cost Cloud based interactive Telemedicine System for fast tracking and improving health services to broader majority of Ugandans.
Features of eMusawo
Doctors ,clinical officers, nurses, hospitals and national citizens(patients) can freely acquire accounts with www.emusawo.com and acquire services on this unique medical eco-system such as:
1. Connection of doctors to their peers to seek consultations on medical Cases, Clinical Officers/Nurses to specialty Doctors to seek advice,
2. Patients ca acquire lab results, schedule appointments, store their personal health records such as medical images ,files and history and thus share them securely with registered specialist Doctors for second opinions or with multiple Hospitals, get medical follow up,
3. Transfer vitals data (ECG, blood pressure, Blood oxygen, Temperature, Blood Glucose) through the eMusawo Telemedicine Kit to medical specialists with accounts (Cardiologist, Neurologist, Oncologist, etc.) and also enable communication (Video/chat/audio) in a highly secure monitored environment.
4. It also enables referral management, chronic disease management, continuing medical education, disease surveillance, ePharmacy, digital treatment plans, clinical decision support, eTriage, eICU, disease screening, remote health monitoring with a network of national
board registered doctors giving rural health centers an opportunity to connect with specialty Doctors in Urban centers and vice versa. It also has an android application in development and a mobile USSD version in the future plans.
eMusawo Telemedicine kit is a miniaturized medical kit containing currently 5 digital instruments capable of accurately testing Blood Pressure, Blood Oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, Temperature, BPM, ECG with plan to do expand number of tests.
Data is sent from the sensors to a smartphone via Bluetooth connection or directly to the eMusawo database for storage, analysis and sharing. This mobile kit can be used for different tests and screening and all data is accessible on www.emusawo.com and can be used in offline mode as long as its connected smartphone and data sent to the cloud when an internet or SMS connection is made.
The effective use of our low cost approach can be effective in addressing the remoteness and rural-urban discrepancy in the quality of health care in Uganda and help us take a step towards the achievement of national health targets and health MDGs. As well as the following
advantages:
1. Improved access to better quality healthcare and access to specialists in rural areas
2. Easier referral management and misdiagnosis
3. Decision support and second opinions
4. Better CME (continuing medical education) for rural health workers
5. Reduced costs of medical tests and travel costs for good second opinions, patient empowerment to control their health
with personal health records and follow up ease
Problems being Solved by eMusawo
Problems being solved include:
1. Shortages of doctors and qualified specialists in rural areas
2. Overloaded referral hospitals
3. Unsolved medical cases and misdiagnosis in rural areas
4. Poor personal health record depository for citizens-poor terrain and inaccessible areas to specialist
health services
5. Shortage of low cost tests and disease screening services-Shortage of medical resources and continuing education to rural clinicians
6. long distances of travel for specialty care
Prototype testing results
Our test results were quite good, in terms of basic functionality of the eMusawo web system as an efficient eco-system incorporating all the 3 users groups (doctors, hospitals, patients) to communicate and share information though improving health data security and privacy to proper HIPAA compliance seems to be our current only hurdle.
The telemedicine kit is still under development to better handle bandwidth stability, baud rates and transmission speeds and tests show great potential for flawless functionality.We estimate given continued support, full launch will be possible in March 2016 to the public.
