Diagnostics - Design Concept

Department of Design, IIT Guwahati

DIAGNOSTICSAn application to diagnose water-borne diseases and provide information about available medical facilities in the vicinity, related to the disease. It includes 5 major diseases – malaria, cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea, hepatitis.


HEALTH CARE AND WELLNESS

WATER-BORNE DISEASES

Water-borne diseases are caused by pathogenic microbes that can be directly spread through contaminated water. Most waterborne diseases cause diarrheal illness. Eighty-eight percent cases of diarrheal illness occur in developing countries because of unsafe water, poor sanitation, and insufficient hygiene. These cases result in 1.5 million deaths each year, mostly in young children. Other waterborne diseases do not cause diarrhoea; instead these diseases can cause malnutrition, skin infections, and organ damage.

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation reports that ", the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation is to halve, by 2015 ".

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WHY WE CHOSE THIS FIELD!

CONSEQUENCES OF WATER-BORNE DISEASES- Diarrhoea caused by intestinal pathogens is the single largest cause of infant and child mortality in India, taking a toll of 1.5 million children under the age of 5 every year. It is also the second largest cause of morbidity in rural areas. India loses about Rs. 36,600 crore every year due to water-borne diseases.

- Every year, over 1.8 million people die of diarrheal diseases (including cholera) and 1.3 million succumb to malaria (2004 figures).

- Of all the deaths attributable to diarrheal diseases in developing countries, 90% are of children under 5 years old, vs. only 9% in developed countries.

- The lack of adequate drinking water and/or sanitation facilities, coupled with poor hygiene, imposes an extremely high disease burden on millions of children and adults through schistosomiasis, intestinal worms, hepatitis, typhoid and other diseases. In turn, this severely compromises well-being and productivity and it aggravates poverty.

STATISTICS% of population using improved drinking water sources, 2008, total : 88% of population using improved drinking water sources, 2008, urban : 96% of population using improved drinking water sources, 2008, rural : 84% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008, total : 31% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008, urban : 54% of population using improved sanitation facilities, 2008, rural : 21

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EXISTING SCENARIO

Most of the existing applications in health care field focus on either regular health and fitness or diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, obesity. Some of the commonly found examples are : diagnosorous, medicap, your rapid diagnosis, webmd, handbook of diseaeses etc.

We noticed a trend in the style of applications, there were certain applications which gave a directory of all the diseases with their symptoms but were unable to diagnose the disease, whereas others that helped in diagnostics, but were unable to provide further assistance in terms of remedies that could relieve the symptoms and availabilityof local medical facilities.

Very few applications are available in the market (both paid and free) which offer diagnostics of diseases by recognition of symptoms and also provide suggestions for medical aid, cure and drugs.

USER PAIN POINTS- Numerous installs and uninstalls

- Sometimes the application doesnt work at all

- Clunky programs

- Sign up required

- Constantly spams email

- Requires large install base for second program with no SD transfer

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CONCEPT

Our application focuses on diagnosis of water-borne diseases and provides information about available medical facilities in the vicinity, related to the disease. We have included 5 major diseases – malaria, cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea, hepatitis. The application helps in diagnosing the disease through deductive logic system, from a given list of symptoms.It also suggests precautions that can be taken to avoid worsening of the symptoms. In addition to that, it provides the user with a list of the medical facilities in the vicinity, so that the user doesn’t have to waste time looking for a doctor or a medical shop. The idea was to help user minimize the health expenditure by proving some aid in the intial stage.

APPLICATION FEATURES - Symptom Checker - Program that helps diagnose the user’s condition on a series of symptoms. User selects based on Deductive Logic System. (The heart rate is measured by monitoring subtle change in the skin colour with the help of a sensitive camera. )

- First Aid - Includes a list of remedial measures to be taken before consulting a doctor for immediate relief

- Drugs & Treatments - A comprehensive and detailed description of current recommended treatments, including dosages

- Local Health Listings - Heps the user in locating nearby pharmacy, physicians and hospitals to save time in case of an emergency

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TARGET USERS : URBAN AUDIENCE

USER PROFILE ‘Unaware middle-income families’ exposed to poor sanitation and unhygienic living conditions. These are the group of people who would probably know about the disease but are not aware about the symptoms of the diseases or the immediate measures to be taken in case they get affected.

USER NEEDS, ASPIRATIONS

- Improved Health Care : A significant amount of diseases could be prevented if treated well in the initial stage itself. Stresing on this phenomenon, we aim to provide a list of remedial measures which can be taken before consulting a doctorfor immediate relief thus improving health.

- Less Expenditure : Considering the huge amount of money spent every year by midle-income families on health, we felt that something could be done at an individual’s level to reduce it. We thereafter came up with a solution that provides some level of diagnosis that can be easily done by an individual himself, saving his money, energy and time.

- More Government Facilities : While surveying people, we observed that almost everbody was complaining about the lack of government facilities and even if there were some facilities they were not very efficient and trustworthy.So an extra effort is required from the govt’s side to solve the problem of health at national level. Also although we can cen help diagnose the disease but can do nothing about the cause of disease. Here comes the role of the governmentt in providing water quality improvement with improvement in water availability combined with sanitation and hygiene education.Sanitation and hygiene are critical to health, survival, and development. A significant amount of disease could be prevented through better access to adequate sanitation facilities and better hygiene practices.

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Department of Design, IIT Guwahati6



CHANGES IN USER LIFESTYLE

LESS HEALTH EXPENDITURE “ Rural people in India spend at least Rs.100 each year for the treatment of water/sanitation-related diseases. According to the Government of India, this adds up to Rs.6,700 crore annually, which is just Rs.52 crore less than the annual budget of the Union Health Ministry and more than the allocation for education ”.

While surveying people in the localities of IIT Guwahati, we found that most of the people (even the ones who can’t afford) being dissatisfied with the the government facilities, went to the private hospitlas for check-ups, medication and treatment. The private hospitals were charging them with exoribantly high prices even for initial exammination and check-up. We want to bring in a change here by cutting down the the check-up expenditure through initial diagnosis by the application itself.

IMPROVED HEALTH CONDITIONS

“ A direct relationship exists between water, sanitation, health, nutrition and human well being. Consumption of contaminated drinking water, improper disposal of human excreta, lack of personal and food hygiene and improper disposal of solid and liquid waste have been the major causes of diseases in our country ”.

We want to help people diagnose the disease in the initial stage itself and thus provide some remedial measures preventing worsening of health conditions. As we know that worsening of health conditions drastically reduces body weight and immunity making them further prone to other infections.

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KEY BENEFITS

INCREMENTAL BENEFITS- Identifying the list of probable diseases helps the user takes appropriate steps to avoid worsening of his condition - Taking care of the disease in the initial stage itself, reducing financial as well as physical loss

- Provides user with a possible diagnosis of his disease through deductive logic system

- Helps the users in identifying nearest medical facilities thereby saving their time and energy. The application gives a list of the nearby hospitals where all the required tests for the diagnosis of a particular disease can be done. It reduces wastage of time and energy for the user, who very often goes to the nearest available government hospital initially and later resorts to private hospitals, due to unavailability of facilities in the former.

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BUSINESS MODEL

USPThe USP would be “ The first app to diagonose water-borne disease to a considerable extent through deductive logic system and the added benifit of locating the nearest medical facilities available ”

Considering the prevalance of the water-borne diseases in India, we believe that it is essential for a smartphone to have an application of this genre.

Also, since majority of the people who cannot afford a smartphone would also be benefited by this application , we would further want to develop a simple version of this application which can run in even a very basic handset.

REVENUE GENERATION The inexistance of any sort of application related to water-borne diseases gives us an edge in terms of idea. Since it would be the first application of its kind, people would want to try it.

There are two proposed solutions :

One is by the mode of advertisement. If the person is installing the trial version of the application, there would be advertisements running on the top/bottom or while loading a page. The advertisers would be liable to pay a particular amount of sum according to the duration or the timimg of the ad. Second is by the trial version and the paid version. It will function like this : The first time the disease can be diagnosed for free and the next time onwards one has to buy the application.

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TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY

- The application is built on Android platform.

- For the diagnosis of diseases, the user just needs to select his/her symptoms of all the listed symptoms.

- Apart from that, the heart rate will be measured by observing the change in the skin colour through the camera.

- Since the changes are very subtle, the sensitivity of the camera has to be increased to appropriately capture these changes.

- In order to locate the nearest medical facility available, we shall need the use of the internet.

- The location of the user will be determined using GPS and accordingly, the nearest medical facilities will be found using Google Maps.

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Area rea 2

Location

Average Income

Water Supply

Water Consumption

Sanitation

Awareness

Symptoms

Vaccines

Medical Facilities

Medical Expenditure

Near the River

6000-7000 (INR)

HandPump/TubeWell

Filtered with jali for drinking and cooking.From river for other purposes.

Waste disposed directly in the river

4 in 10 people aware about the diseases

Loose motions, vomiting, dehydration

8 in 10 people have taken vaccination

8 in 10 people use Government Facilities

Rs 5 for Government Facilities for each visit.Rs 500 for private for each visit.

Away from the River

15000-20000 (INR)

Government Pipeline

Open Drains leading to the river

9 in 10 people aware about the diseases

Loose motions, vomiting, dehydration

9 in 10 people have taken vaccination

9 in 10 people use Private Facilities

Rs 5 for Government Facilities for each visit.Rs 500 for private for each visit.

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TEAM MEMBERS

ADITI PADHISARAYU AGARWALSATYAN CHAWLA

DEPARTMENT OF DESIGNIIT GUWAHATI

GUIDED BY : ASSISTANT PROF. KEYUR SORATHIA