Rural cardiac healthcare system-A scheme for developing countries

A simple, easy to implement and low cost mobile health(m-health) solution using general packet radio service (GPRS) of globally extended cellular mobile network for economically deprived countries is described in this paper. According to different statistical surveys, heart disease is a major health burden throughout the world but more importantly the third world countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. We consider here a telecardiology system, where the ECG images captured by mobile camera are sent using Multimedia Massage Service (MMS) to a data extraction and processing unit. This unit can extract digitized data from those images, which may be restored as database in a dedicated server and also analyzed by an inbuilt knowledgebase as well as a rough decision generating system. Ultimately, the system will generate an automated report that will suggest the primary treatment and preventive measures to be taken by the patient. The report will be sent back to the patient by Short Message Service (SMS) through the same mobile system. The main advantage of the system is that it will not require constant monitoring or presence of a doctor at the initial stage. The ECG of the patient with critical abnormality or unknown abnormality will be directly sent to the doctorpsilas mobile and intimation will also be sent to the patient site directly. The extreme popularity of mobile phone with camera in the third world countries makes this architecture practically realizable.