Design and implementation of an advanced telemedicine model for the rural people of Bangladesh

OBJECTIVES: Telemedicine based healthcare service faces different difficulties especially in the remote people of Bangladesh. The objective of this study was to implement an advanced telemedicine model in order to provide the healthcare services for the rural people of Bangladesh. METHODS: We developed the telemedicine model using an ardunio based low cost portable telemedicine tool kit by interfacing android application. Then we collected ECG, blood pressure, temperature, concentration of glucose in blood, SPO2, body position, airflow, height and weight through our developed model. Moreover, we designed a server for storing the recorded signal from the patients in order to treat them by health care professionals. Finally, this model is successfully tested with the patients of Marie Stopes Bangladesh Hospital Dhaka. RESULTS: We have removed noise from the recorded signal successfully through our developed hardware and software based techniques. Real time data were visualized to the expert doctor in order to prescribe them through our model. CONCLUSIONS: These results support that rural patient vital information can be collected in an automated way through the advanced model. Both rural and urban doctors can share and exchange patient information more effectively for the treatment of patient. The results of this research indicated that our developed telemedicine system can be used effectively in order to deliver healthcare services for the rural people of Bangladesh.