1. Mobile doctor
Abstract
This report analyzed the reasons why people do not like visit the doctor frequency
and pointed out the importance of visiting the doctor. Then, this report introduced a new
designing mobile technology which can help people check up their bodies and see the
doctor at home. Finally, this report claimed some recommendations for this new
designing mobile technology to improve its system.
1.0 Introduction
Nowadays, people became increasingly busy than some years before. The
survey found that men work 8.4 hours per day and women work 7.7 hours per day,
on average (U.S. Bureau of Labor, 2007) . This cause people do not have enough
time to visit the doctor. Therefore, this report will analyze the importance of visit
the doctor and introduce a new technology on the smart mobile equipment which
can help people to check up their bodies instead of visit the real doctor face-to-face.
Finally, this report will give some recommendations for this new technology about
the mobile doctor.
2.0 Findings
2.1 The reason why people do not visit the doctor frequency
Figure 1: COD 2008: Deaths by age for the year 2008 (the WHO, 2008)
From the Figure 1, it can be seen that there are three groups of people
who are the most easy to get sick and dead of it: the newborn which aged 0-
4, the middle aged which aged 45-69 and the elderly which aged 70+ . Many
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
0-4 5-14 15-29 30-44 45-59 60-69 70-79 80+
Deathsperthoutandpeople
Deaths by age for the year 2008
age
On average
2. of these people dead because of the diseases which are not be treated timely.
This is caused by both personal situations and medical system.
2.1.1 Personal reason
2.1.1.1 The newborn group
The newborn children do not have a complete immune system to
defense and treat diseases. Thus, this group of people are easily to be
killed by diseases without a timely treatment. However, because people
are too busy, most parents do not have enough time to take good care of
their own children. Thus this job is given to the children’s grandparents.
However, most grandparents are elderly people who do not have enough
power to take full attention on their grandchildren and lack of modern
medical knowledge. Therefore, when the children get sick, their
grandparents may not find out the problem as quickly as it happens and
this will cause the treatment delay.
2.1.1.2 The middle aged group
For the middle aged group, the reason for this high mortality is these
people do not take good care of their own bodies. It is known that the
middle aged people are the busiest. Most of this group of people are the
managers, engineering or doing some other important jobs in companies
or government. In addition, middle aged people need to take care of their
children and may also need to take care of their elderly parents.
(Chaudhuri, 2000) Thus, it is quite hard for this group of people to find
out even a little time for doing a check-up or visiting the doctor for the
disease which they believe is too trivial. However, when the sick develop
to a terrible disease, it may be already too late for the treatment.
2.1.1.3 The elderly group
For the elderly people, their bodies are being increasingly weak and
easy to get sick just as the newborn group. In addition, because they did
not take good care of their own bodies at their middle aged time, the
elderly may already had some noncommunicable diseases, such as high
blood sugar, heart diseases and hypertension for a long time, which make
them weaker. However, most elderly people have some movement
problems, such as arthritis and osteoporosis. Therefore, even though
they have plenty of free time, it is still quite hard for them to go out and
visit the doctor without any younger people’s help.
2.1.2 Medical system’s reason
The slow medical system is another reason for people cannot visit the
doctor as quickly as they get sick. People need to book for a doctor at the
medical centers when they get sick and make an appointment to see the
doctor 1 or 2 days, even 3 days later. This also cause people cannot get the
treatment timely. They will think that whether they visit the doctor or not,
they need to wait for 2 days and maybe they will come better 2 days later.
Thus, they will show less interest about visiting the doctor.
3. 2.2 The importance of visit doctor
Figure 2: Deaths by noncommunicable disease for the year 2008 (the WHO, 2008)
Visiting the doctor frequency and doing check-up annually could help
people keep healthy and find out some terrible diseases, such as cancer as
early as they can. From the Figure 2, it can be seen that most people who
dead because of the noncommunicable diseases such as, cardiovascular
diseases and malignant neoplasms which could be cured, at least could live
longer, if the diseases can be found early. Therefore, it is quite necessary for
the people who cannot visit the doctor face-to-face to check-up their body or
ask for help from the doctor out of the medical centers or hospitals.
Deaths by noncommunicable disease for the year
2008
cardiovascular diseases
malignant neoplasms
Respiratory diseases
Digestive diseases
Endocrine disorders
Congenital anomalies
others
4. 2.3 The Introduction of the mobile doctor
Figure 3: mobile doctor tools
Figure 4: use camera to check eyes
The mobile doctor system is a medical system carries on the smart
equipment such as, smart phones, smart watches and tablets. It could help
people check up their bodies and get the suggestions from the doctor at home
during their rest time. The equipment that people need to have for using this
mobile doctor are a smart equipment and some addition tools for check-up,
just like it shown in Figure 3 (Stethocloud, 2013). People could get simple
check-up feedback, such as blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate
without any waiting, with these tools and the mobile doctor app. It can also
help people find out the heart and lung diseases with a stethoscope, and find
out the eyes and skin diseases with the camera just as Figure 4 shows.
(Euronews, 2013)
5. 2.4 How does the mobile doctor system work
2.4.1 Basic physic check-up
Figure 5: mobile doctor app
The mobile doctor app could do some basic check-up and give
simple feedbacks without connecting do real doctors. People could
connect the tools which are shown in Figure 3 to the mobile equipment
and follow the steps which are shown on the screen by the doctor app
just as what is shown in Figure 5 to do some simple body check-up. After
the mobile app receive the information through the check-up tools, the
system will analyze the data and compare it with the healthy indicators,
then give people personal feedback about their healthy situation, such as
whether they have heart diseases, whether they have Pneumonia and
whether they have hypertensive or diabetes. (Stethocloud, 2013)
2.4.2 Blood check up
People could already check up their blood sugar at home with a
small glucose meter. This function can also be put into this mobile doctor
app. in addition, because the smart equipment’s performance is already
quite similar with computers, people could not only check up their blood
sugar, but also some other blood checks, such as routine blood check and
hepatitis b check with smart equipment. Furthermore, just as basic
check-up, the blood check-up could also give personal feedbacks
through the data. (Saenz, 2010)
2.4.3 Advanced requirement
The mobile doctor app could also do some complex check-up with
a connecting to the real doctor. This is a chargeable function because it
will connect to a real doctor just similar with seeing doctors face-to-face.
People could do the basic check-up, blood check-up (if necessary) and
type the description of their sick into the doctor app, and then click a
button ‘ask for a doctor’. The system will analyze the basic and blood
6. check-up data, and sent the results and the description to the central of
this app which is connected with plenty of hospitals and medical centers
all over the world who are pleased to join this mobile doctor system.
When the central get the massages, it will sort them based on the
membership level of each user which is partitioned by how much money
they have paid and the sending time. Then the central will search for free
doctors and send the users’data one by one. The doctors who receive the
data from the patient could estimate the situation of them and give the
feedbacks about what they need to do, such as whether they need to have
some medicine, whether they need to do some exercise, whether they
need to give some further information about their sick or even they need
to visit a real doctor face-to-face if the disease is so serious. (Euronews,
2013)
At the same time, with the cameras on the mobile equipment, people
could even make a video call with the real doctors through this app if
they are pleased to pay more money. The video call could help the
doctors see when happen to the patients more clearly and detailed. It
could also avoid some misunderstanding through the writing words,
because people could talking more to describe their sick. Furthermore,
with video calls, people could get doctors’feedback without any waiting.
(Euronews, 2013)
2.5 Benefits for using mobile doctor app
2.5.1 For users
Firstly, people do not need to book for the doctor and do not need to
visit the doctor during the working time. They could do the check-up
themselves, send the situation of their sick and ask for the doctor’s help
at home after work, even the doctors near their home have already gone
off work. The mobile doctor central will find out a doctor who is atill
working in another place automatically. Thus, even the busiest people in
the world could visit the doctor during their rest time. (Corderoy, 2013)
Secondly, elderly or disabled people could visit the doctor without
any block. With the mobile equipment and check-up tools, they can do
all of the steps for seeing a doctor at home. This would make the elderly
people easier to take care of their own healthy. (Corderoy, 2013)
Thirdly, this app could help people become more health, but use less
money. With this app, people could do the check-up at home for free,
because the basic check-up could be done with the mobile equipment
and the check-up tools themselves. People do not need to pay the fee for
the check-up in the hospital. At the same time, as people all know,
diseases could be cured the earlier the easier. With this app, people could
find out their diseases as early as possible, because this body check-up
do not take their working time and they can do it whenever they want.
Thus, people could treat their diseases easily when it just happens. Easy
7. treatment also means less money. Therefore, this app could help the
users save plenty of money. (Regalado, 2013)
Finally, people could protect their privacy about the diseases. Some
people are shy to see the doctor because they are afraid to let other people
know their diseases, such as venereal disease, infertile problem and
hemorrhoids, especially the acquaintances. They believe that their
friends will laugh at them if they know their diseases. Thus, they will
not visit the doctor and delay the best time for cure their diseases
(Anonymous, 2003). This app could help these people because no others
will know their diseases except themselves and their doctors. Therefore,
they will not be shy to speak about their diseases with the doctor, because
the doctor may come from another place and they will not meet again
forever.
2.5.2 For hospital and medical centers
Firstly, doctors can share their knowledge through this app. The
doctors also could use this app to ask for help during their real outpatient
service. This will help the doctors from all over the world increase their
skills. At the same time, the doctors from different countries could have
meetings together to work for difficult problems or new diseases.
(Edelman, 2011)
Secondly, hospitals can prepare more abundant when the emergency
event happens. Most time, the people who call the ambulance do not
have much medical knowledge to describe what is happening there
clearly. Thus, the hospitals do not know what need to be prepared until
the doctors reach the scene. However, with this app, the people who call
the ambulance could take photos of the patient and the scene, and send
them through this app. Then, the hospitals will know more detailed about
what happened and what rescue equipment need to be prepared
completely before the patients arrive. (Corderoy, 2013)
Finally, the hospitals could save money in many ways. By using this
app, the population of the people who want to visit the real doctor will
decrease, but hospitals could still earn money through mobile doctor app.
Therefore, the hospital do not need to rent for a big area than before,
because they do not need places for putting basic check-up equipment
and do not need a big waiting room for the patient who comes to see a
doctor. On the other hand, if the hospitals do not want to decrease their
building size, they could place more operating room and ward for more
serious patients. Furthermore, the hospital could also let their own
doctors use this app to do the basic check-up for the patients. That means,
the hospital do not need to buy the huge machines for the basic check-
up and could save energy fee for using these machines. (Regalado, 2013)
8. 2.6 Potential issues
Firstly, the medical system is a significance important system. It
sometime could be treated as a place for judging people’s life. The mistakes
cause by the doctor may lead to people lose their life. In addition, this mobile
medical system is connected to the whole world which makes this system
more complex. Therefore, this mobile medical system need a completely
global regulate organization. (Corderoy, 2013)
Secondly, because this mobile doctor app is connected to the whole
world, the translate system is a big issue for this system. As people all know,
the current translate system could just translate some simple sentences. Thus,
it is quite hard for this translate system to translate the description of the sick,
because there are many academic words in it. In addition, even the countries
which are using same language, there will have some different meanings of
some words base on different cultures. On the contrary, if this app use
artificial translation, it may need a huge number of translators for translate
the massage comes from every corner of the world. (Edelman, 2011)
Finally, smart equipment could do many jobs for the doctor, but what the
system do is analyze the data it gets. The system could not estimate accuracy
of the data. If people input the wrong information, for instance, people put
the stethoscope at the wrong place, the system will give wrong feedback
which may cause the user make wrong decisions. (Corderoy, 2013)
3.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, this mobile doctor app could help people who do not have time and
cannot visit the doctor face-to-face get good treatments. This app could increase
the whole world people’s healthy, increase skill and technology of the medical
system and help the hospitals and medical centers earn more money. If this app
could have a completely regulator organization to make sure this system is
developing in the right way, this useful app will help to increase people’s life
expediency of the whole world.
4.0 Recommendations
Ask the WHO to be the regulator for this app
The WHO is a world wild organization and their job is make the people
all over the world became more health. Therefore, they will glad to regulate
this mobile doctor system because this system could lead to the development
of the whole world’s medical treatment system and people’s healthy. In
addition, the WHO was established in 1948, and already become a perfectly
organization. They have enough experience to manage this mobile doctor
system without any problems.
Give preference to choose the doctor from same country
Making the app’s system default to choose the doctors from the same
9. countries of the patient could solve the problem of misunderstanding and
translation. The people who have a good communication skills in English
could change this app can find the doctors from other countries through the
settings panel. Therefore, the people who do not have a good skill on other
languages could use this app without any confused. At the same time, the
people who want to connect with the doctor from other countries and the
doctors who want to ask for help or exchange experience with other countries’
doctors can also get what they want through this app.
Use Unambiguous words for guide people to use the app
This is just like what have been done for writing aircraft maintenance
book. Using unambiguous words would cause less misunderstandings and
confused. The users will use the tools in the right way and get the right result
for the check-up. At the same time, using pictures can also make people
understand what they should do clearly. Furthermore, in case people still make
mistakes for using these tools, this app should be designed that it cannot give
people medicine suggestions. The medicine suggestions can only be given by
the real doctors and the app’s system could only give health suggestions, such
as ‘you need to do more exercise’, ‘you need to eat more vegetables’, ‘you
need to give up smoking’ and ‘you need to talk with a real doctor’.
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