Design of a Web-based and Electronic Health Record Management System for Medical Teleconsultation

Abstract

In the Philippines, one problem in the healthcare industry is the maldistribution of doctors, which greatly affects the accessibility of patients to proper healthcare. In 2015, 59.2% of deaths in the country are attributed as deaths unattended by a doctor. The use of a telepresence system is a viable solution as doctors can still provide healthcare services even his patients are situated remotely. One limitation of medical teleconsultation is the lack of medical features. This study developed a telepresence system, which includes a robot with integrated medical devices such as otoscope, stethoscope, and ultrasound probe. Also, the study integrated a wireless data hub that hosts the web application and electronic health record (EHR) management system. The database structure was created using MySQL. Using HTML5 and Flask, the web application was developed as a mean for users to create, store, and access the user and patient information, remotely control the movement of the robot, allow two-way video telecommunication with minimal delay even at low internet speeds of as low as 400Kbps, and receive real time feed from the medical devices integrated in the robot. Tested by invited medical professionals, the developed application has the following results on usability metrics: 93.89% completion rate, 93.58% over relative efficiency, highly satisfied users, and high system usability score (SUS) of 82.5.