A mobile healthcare system for Sub-saharan Africa

Abstract

The disparity between healthcare systems in developed countries and underdeveloped countries is huge, particularly due to the fact that the healthcare infrastructure of former is based on a sophisticated technological infrastructure. Efforts are being made worldwide to bridge this disparity and make healthcare services affordable even to the most remote areas of undeveloped countries. Recent growth of mobile networks in underdeveloped countries argues for building mHealth systems and applications on their basis. However, peculiarities of the area introduce difficulties into potential use cases of mobile devices, thus making the copying of mHealth services from developed countries inapplicable. In this paper, we present the functional requirements for a patient medical record system running partially on mobile devices and architectural choices for this system. Requirements are based on the circumstances of the Republic of Cameroon. In addition we discuss the country-level benefits that may appear after deployment of such a system. © Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2013.