Design and Implementation of Non-Invasive Telemedicine System for Detecting Cholesterol Levels in Blood as a Solution during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Excess total blood cholesterol can cause heart vessel disorders, stroke and the most fatal can cause death. Checking cholesterol levels should be done regularly, especially for someone who has reached adulthood. The implementation of a telemedicine system by utilizing digital technology provides convenience in exchanging medical information for early monitoring, diagnosis, and disease prevention during the Covid-19 pandemic. The design of this system can help reduce medical waste that is increasing during the pandemic. Cholesterol levels are detected using the Oxymeter sensor DS-100A which is placed on the finger by utilizing the absorption of infrared wavelengths. Arduino Uno R3 microcontroller as a minimum system for controlling the output value in the form of digital data. The measurement results are displayed on a 20x4 liquid crystal display (LCD) and an android smartphone based on the Blynk application with communication via the internet using the Wifi NodeMCU 8266 module. Testing of the instrument was carried out by measuring cholesterol levels in 35 samples taken randomly, then compared using invasive and non-invasive methods. The results of testing the tool obtained an average error value of 17.24% with a tool accuracy value of 82.76%. The final result of the error rate analysis shows that this cholesterol level detection system can be used as a rough estimate only because it is less than the limit of accuracy of medical devices that can be used for humans, which is more than or equal to 95%. The telemedicine system can display data on the Blynk application screen with an average transfer time of 2.36 s.