ImPatho - an image processing based pathological decision support system for disease identification and a novel tool for overall health governance

Governance of healthcare has been one of most challenging and complex issues of the government of any developing country. Many of the life threatening diseases, such as Sickle Cell Anemia, can be prevented properly if these can be diagnosed on time. In many cases, diagnosis demands a simple blood test to find out deformation in the shape of blood cells. We investigated in this paper, if such tests can be carried out at the doorstep of the likely patient wherein the intervention of a skilled person from the pathology lab is suitably replaced by a technology developed in form of an app. The app and the hardware combo which we propose, called ImPatho, uses image processing algorithm to judge if blood cells are indicative of some disease. Our solution then follows a decision support system through data analyses which can be reported to doctors, district health officers, state health department for proper treatment and monitoring, via our app. It is shown that the developed system, ImPatho, is a complete end-to-end solution for the challenges faced by the government of developing countries particularly where people from remote, tough or even rural terrain cannot come to a nearby pathology lab to get themselves investigated for a likely disease. Our solution ImPatho empathizes this Catch 22 situation and makes an attempt to bring the pathology lab at the doorstep of such helpless people. This is how our system helps ensure proactive, responsive healthcare governance. ImPatho has a huge potential, if scaled to higher levels of governing echelon, to provide an alternative solution for governments who are sensitive towards healthcare of poor people.