Development of A Simple e-Health System for Tuberculosis Management at Community Health Center Level in Indonesia
This paper describes a preliminary development of an Internet and mobile phone-based e-health system for Tuberculosis (TB) management in a Community Health Center (CHC) or hospital. A standard DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-course) strategy is applied to support the diagnosis and therapy of the TB patients in Indonesia. Unfortunately, the number of TB prevalence is still relatively high, perhaps due to the relatively high percentage of patients with uncompleted therapy. Such cases are caused by several factors, for example: “healthy feeling” before completing the therapy, not taking regular medicine as required, not attending regular medical visit, and possible drug side-effects. Basically, the TB management e-health system under development includes measurement, recording, evaluation, reminder and reporting functions. The system consists of: personal computer (PC), simple digital microscope, patient database software, SMS (Short Message Services) gateway software, and telecommunication module. The digital data is saved in the web-based patient database for further information retrieval and education purposes to improve diagnosis quality of TB. The system can also send 16 SMS reminders to the patient for taking the medicine or attending medical visit during 6 months. Moreover, the patient can do remote TB consultation through her/his mobile phone using the SMS facility. The system can also be further developed for tele-consultation to a Pulmonologist or other medical specialist in the referral hospital. Therefore, the Internet and mobile phone-based e-health system for Tuberculosis management is expected to increase the number of TB patients with completed therapy and to improve the quality of health services.
Dibuat oleh : Hendi Handian R. 1), L.I. Octovia 2), Soegijardjo Soegijoko 3)
E-mail: hendi_059@yahoo.com, lily_kasim@yahoo.com, soegi@ieee.org
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Keterangan : Makalah ini dimuat pada Proceedings BME Days 2008: International Conference on Biomedical Engineering, (ISBN : 978-979-11847-0-9) pada tanggal 11-12 November 2008 di Surabaya, Indonesia.