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. 2023 Nov 30;10(1):e23100.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23100. eCollection 2024 Jan 15.

eDakterBari: A human-centered solution enabling online medical consultation and information dissemination for resource-constrained communities in Bangladesh

Ishrat Jahan Eliza  1 , Mobasshira Akter Urmi  1 , Md Tousif Tanjim Anan  1 , Md Tanveer Hossain Munim  1 , Fattah-Zul-Ikram Galib  1 , A B M Alim Al Islam  1
Affiliations

eDakterBari: A human-centered solution enabling online medical consultation and information dissemination for resource-constrained communities in Bangladesh

Ishrat Jahan Eliza et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

A well-accessible healthcare system is an important measure of the progress of a country, as access to adequate healthcare is one of everyone's very basic human rights. When a community lives below the poverty line, unfortunately, it gets deprived of the basic human rights like healthcare, which is a reality to many resource-constrained communities around the world. The number of such resource-constrained communities in developing countries is large. Orphans present a prominent example in this regard in the context of Bangladesh. Orphans suffer greatly from many diseases due to their resource-constrained environment of livings and they are unable to take a minimum care of their own health. Their lack of resources, inadequate literacy skills, and limited (or no) access to technology leave them in such a position that they are ignorant of healthcare services available for them directly or through technological means. Considering all these unavoidable real aspects and the fact that such resource-constrained communities are very little focused in the literature for aiding them in getting bare minimum healthcare services, in this study, we leverage technology and relevant appropriate intermediaries to bridge the gap between the orphans in the orphanages and healthcare services offered by medical doctors. To accomplish so, we conduct a series of field studies over the intended communities. The orphanage teachers and administrators, being in proximity, are the most effective ones to operate as intermediaries for the orphan children, as revealed through our field studies. Therefore, we use these intermediaries to help the orphans to get basic healthcare services via an Android healthcare app called 'Shastho-sheba'. We also use our findings from the field study to specifically tailor and modify the application for intermediaries to use on behalf of the orphans so that health professionals can provide direct healthcare services to them over the Internet. Finally, we look into our proposed techno-social solution in the context of HCI to ensure that the service is used more effectively.

Keywords: Bangladesh; Healthcare; Intermediary; Low-resource; Orphans; Semi-structured survey; Techno-social solution.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Methodology of Our Study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Orphans in the Orphanages.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Orphanages in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, and Azimpur Area.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Snapshot of Chosen Locations for Our Survey (P Marked).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba’ App for Intermediary (a) Welcome Page, (b) Registration Page, (c) Login Page, and (d) List of the Patients under the Assigned Intermediary along with the Register-login Button.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba patient’ App for an Intermediary (a) Registration Page for the Patient, (b) Login Page for the Patient, and (c) Home Page of the Patient after Login with Necessary Features.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba patient’ App for Intermediary (a) Page Containing All the Schedules of a Particular Day on the Particular Time Frame Page after Pressing Schedules Today Option in Home Page, (b) Doctor Details Page after Selecting a Schedule Card, and (c) Chamber of the Doctor Page Indicating if the Doctor is Online or Offline.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba doctor’ App for Health Professionals (a) Home Page for Doctors with My Chamber Option, (b) Page Containing All the Schedules of a Particular Day, and (c) Chamber of the Doctor Page Indicating if the Patients are Online or Offline.
Figure 9
Figure 9
‘Shastho-sheba Doctor’ App for Doctors with Add New Schedule Page without Fee Information.
Figure 10
Figure 10
System Model of Our Proposed Solution.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba doctor’ App (a) Doctor Calling Patient, (b) Patient Receiving the Call, and (c) Established Video Call (identity of the user is not revealed so face in the video is marked as black).
Figure 12
Figure 12
Different Interfaces of Enhanced ‘Shastho-sheba doctor and patient’ App (a) Doctor Adding Medicines, (b) Doctor Adding Symptoms, (c) Preview of Prescription, and (d) Prescription Page from Patient's End.
Figure 13
Figure 13
Real-time Deployment of App in (a) Jannatun Nisa Female Orphanage, (b) Sir Salimullah Orphanage, and (c) Dhaka Ahsania Mission Female Orphanage.
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