Project background and justification
Access to medical specialists, of which there are about 200 different
types, is largely limited to the developed world. For developing
economies, especially rural areas, this medical expertise is either
non-existent or limited to large urban centers resulting in millions of
people dying each year from treatable conditions (WHO).
Pakistan is also faced with inadequate and inefficient primary
healthcare facilities in rural/remote areas due mainly to the
unavailability of doctors and lack of resources. Currently, there is
only 1 doctor for every 2000 people, twice that of the recommended WHO
ratio of 1 in 1,000. Most doctors are urban-based whereas 75 per cent
of the population resides in rural areas. Consequently, the only
available medical access for rural patients are the LHWs. They tend to
treat diseases for which they are inadequately trained therefore
require a specialist’s opinion. More often than not, these specialists
are difficult to contact.
It is estimated that 80 per cent of all deaths and 90 per cent of all
illnesses in Pakistan result from diseases that are preventable [3]. We
believe that this percentage can easily be decreased by early
diagnosis, awareness, and affordable regular treatment provided through
properly utilized ICT technologies and empowerment of LHWs in the use
of these technologies.
Although ICT infrastructure is now in place, there is no value-added
service or application to utilize this network. Furthermore, there is
no central authority where these LHWs can call and get medical support
from doctors and specialists. Our proposed project utilizes this
network of LWHs by collecting unique data about patients in rural
Pakistan. This data can be stored and expert opinion can be obtained
from specialists either in major Pakistani cities or in the US. Our
first site chosen to implement this project is a healthcare facility in
the rural Mardan district in the NWFP province.
Our goal is to devise newer and effective ways for bringing a rapid
change to healthcare for rural communities. The mission of this
project is to dramatically lower the cost of delivering care by
leveraging ICTs to deliver, medical expertise, remotely. Jaroka will
provide an Internet-based and mobile-ready, tele-medicine network that
will connect clinicians and LHWs in Mardan with specialists in major
cities of Pakistan and USA.
Project summary
Pakistan is experiencing an acute shortage of qualified healthcare specialists and adequate health facilities in rural areas of the country. For a population of over 160 million Pakistanis, there are only 110,000 registered medical doctors and only 1,000 government-run hospitals. Furthermore, Pakistan has one of the highest rural infant (86.8/1000) and maternal mortality (170.8/1000) in the Asia Pacific region.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 70 per cent of Pakistanis never see a doctor their entire lives and instead rely on Lady Health Workers (LHW) for their medical needs. LHW are government-trained healthcare workers who operate out of their homes in rural areas of Pakistan providing primary and maternal care. There are over 100,000 such healthcare workers in Pakistan, each responsible for a community of about 1,000 in their neighbourhood.
Our project aims to utilize mobile platforms to extend tele-healthcare based services in rural Mardan. This will include Short Messaging Service (SMS), MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), GPRS/Edge and VSAT to quickly and efficiently extend medical advice to LHW in the field by connecting them to our network of specialists. This will enable LHW to provide quality healthcare to the community. Further they can download short audio and video files to keep them abreast with latest medical advances. These multimedia files will also act as quick training sessions for LHW in the field.
We aim to train 50 LHW in the Mardan district over the next year. Once it is successfully deployed in Mardan, we shall replicate it in other districts of Pakistan.
Organization profile
The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (SEECS), part of the NUST Institute of Information Technology is one of the world leaders in engineering education and research.
Besides successfully running undergraduate programs in IT, telecommunication and electronics engineering, the institute also conducts an MS IT program, and is poised soon start an MS program in CSE. In recognition of NIIT’s proven academic and research credentials, NIIT was recently renamed as SEECS. This new name synchronizes with the stature of the institute by providing high quality education in electrical and computer disciplines.
The institute boasts having on its premises some of the world class laboratories which notably include an IBM- NIIT Linux Competency Center; a Center for High Performance Scientific computing; a CERN Research Lab; a Caltech Research Lab; a Network Technologies Research Lab; a Wireless Networks Research Lab; an Information Security Lab; a Center of Excellence for FPGAs, and an ASIC Research Lab.
For more information about NUST-SEECS, visit:
http://www.nust.edu.pk/