EMRS for a New Era
MedEasy past, present, and future
The MedEasy technology a comprehensive mobile Electronic Medical Record System (EMRS) that:
- efficiently identifies patients, and
- stores, retrieves and visualises their medical charts,
enabling doctors to provide better healthcare. It is a tool specifically designed to ease and improve different tasks in a clinic workflow, thus allowing the doctors to focus their attention on what really matters:
healing people.
Finding the problem
When designing and developing MedEasy, our team employed the design thinking framework. This distinct system provides a series of guiding principles which help situate the end-user at the centre of the design process, thus allowing a solution to be drafted for a real problem.
Our team has been going through the design thinking cycle repeatedly for over four years, helping guarantee a deep understanding of the doctors and patients. Thanks to this, our team has been able to effectively define the problem, and ideate and prototype working systems for that issue.
We know that designing in a lab is not comparable to real life, and we would not be satisfied with simple hypotheticals. Thus, we went one step further and tested MedEasy in the real world. Not once. Not twice. But over ten times, each with better results.
Observations on the field
We are proud to collaborate with the Phnom Penh-based One-2-One Charitable Trust. This NGO provides free medical services to marginalised groups in and around the Cambodian capital.
Our team has been working with their medical staff for over four years, allowing us to test MedEasy on the field and collect ample feedback. Again and again, our team has worked alongside them in makeshift mobile clinics with slums, serving up to 50 patients per every 4-hour session.
Their input has been instrumental in building a technology that is so tailored to doctors’ work style that it requires no training. MedEasy seamlessly merges with their existing workflow.
Issues identified
In the Cambodian context, several issues become apparent when delivering healthcare services:
- Doctors use paper for medical charts - the sheer volume these charts occupy make them cumbersome to carry into the slums. They are also more susceptible to becoming displaced and damaged during transport, as a result of Cambodia’s suddenly changing weather (e.g. monsoon rains)
- Doctors have difficulties identifying patients - people in Cambodia do not use IDs, and the low literacy level among the targeted population means that they often cannot spell their names. This makes patient identification an unusually arduous task
- Most patients suffer from chronic conditions - such diseases require continuous follow-ups to guarantee the condition is being contained
These particularities cause access to detailed medical charts to be hindered. Thus, the medical staff become unable to provide effective continuity of care, with highly deleterious effects on the patients’ health.
These issues can be allocated into three distinct categories.
- Technical: a new way to safely store, retrieve, and visualise medical charts mus be envisioned.
- Social: the solution must be suited to the Cambodian context; the solution must not attempt to change the local practices, but adapt to them instead.
- Cultural: the solution must be in line with local customs and traditions, such that doctors and patients are readily willing to adopt it.
Basing ourselves on these targets, our team developed MedEasy:
UN Sustainable Development Goals: Good Health & Wellbeing
We strongly support and advocate for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and so we have designed MedEasy to help meet the Good Health and Wellbeing’s targets.
MedEasy is a tool for all, yet particularly designed to serve the needs of the most improverished, neglected and marginalised communities. With MedEasy, we help extend the reach and effectiveness of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Along with the UN, we, too, believe that the best cure for any disease is prevention. MedEasy is, thus, embedded with data collection and analysis functionalities for disease forecasting. With this information, MedEasy helps medical staff predict where disease outbursts are likely to happen, so that preventive measures can be implemented in time. (feature in development)
Clinic routines in Cambodia
Based on this clinic set-up, we have developed and tested MedEasy through yearly iterations, each better than the last:
The MedEasy EMRS
After years of development, many product iterations, and a deep understanding of the use contexts, we are proud to present the final version of the MedEasy EMRS.
MedEas is comprised of both hardware and software, designed hand-in-hand to guarantee a seamless user experience.
Hardware
The MedEasy hardware kit encases all the sensitive electronics in a secure, sturdy casing. It is made of a highly durable plastic composite with special insultation materials which help make the kit splash-proof.
Furthermore, it is Press-n-Play! With the touch of one button, the EMRS is turned on instantaneously, ready to assist doctors. No need for tech-savvy staff.
In the inside of the case, we find the three components necessary to set up the EMRS: a Raspberry Pi 3, a small router and an external 20,000mAh battery.
- The Raspberry Pi acts as the brain of the EMRS - it is the on-board server managing the patient data.
- The small router enables communication between different clinic stations - it establishes a local hotspot that several devices can connect to, such that the EMRS can be handled by different people simultaneously.
- The battery pack provides sufficient power for up to eight hours of uninterrupted use.
All of these components not only are readily available, but they are also the cheapest in the market and can be easily put together. With this simple engineering solution, we help guarantee that everyone can access, set-up and fix MedEasy.
With this “easy to make and fix” design, we stand by the Right to Repair movement and the UN’s SDGs - MedEasy is a tool for all.
Software
The MedEasy mobile app has been carefully crafted for maximum personalisation.
Each step within the app was developed in accordance to doctors’ existing workflow, such that there is practically no need for training. Unlike other EMRS, MedEasy does not impose a routine, but instead adapts to the medical staff’s existing way of doing things. Doctors love it.
Triage is designed to collect the patient’s information and chief complaints.
However, as we have mentioned, patient identification is often a challenge. That is why MedEasy includes a biometric patient identification system through the use of an external iris scanner.
With a 99.99% accuracy and three second response time, doctors can use MedEasy’s integrated iris scanner to identify just about any patient: it works with people of all ages and with patients with eye-related conditions.
(The team is currently considering alternative technologies that do not require the use of an external accessory)
When recording information, doctors like to doodle and, while most EMRS do not consider this, MedEasy obviously does. Draw away or take pictures of any part of the body for future reference and comparison - worry not, all the information and data is encrypted!
MedEasy also allows medical staff to input diagnoses at record speed. Our database automatically suggests the conditions usually associated with the mentioned chief complaints, allowing doctors to pick from the provided list more rapidly. The final diagnosis is, of course, the doctor’s decision.
MedEasy pledges ease of use, intuitive design and seamless implementation from start to finish. Unlike any other mass-produced EMRS, the medical staff, the patients, and the cultural characteristics come first; the product is the response to their needs.
In terms of usage, MedEasy is unique. It is very easy to carry into the slums with a weight of under 0.5kg, and it even is easy to repair, for it only uses cheap, off-the-shelf components that can be replaced at a moments notice. Additionally, it maintains patient data secure under the strictest level of confidentiality: the data is encrypted and, when connection is available, stored in a secure cloud enclave.
MedEasy’s design has been made by doctors, making it the most tailored EMRS to a mobile clinic’s workflow. As such, it is also the easiest to use and to troubleshoot! Repeated field tests have shown MedEasy to be equally efficient in implementation, demonstrating that MedEasy is, indeed, the best solution.
The best solution to the problem
MedEasy proves its worth by meeting the three targets mentioned:
- Accessibility - MedEasy is the easiest EMRS to use in the market, and the fact that it only uses off-the-shelf components means that anyone can build it.
- Effectiveness - MedEasy does what it is supposed to do well and fast. It has a high level of redundancy built-in to ensure it works no matter what, so that doctors can take of being doctors.
- Expandability - MedEasy is open for everyone, and thanks to its unique licensing, its improvements are also open to all.
A self-sustaining EMRS
An EMRS for all
MedEasy is built for improvement. Thanks to its unique design, it has demonstrated to have tangible impact on the communities it serves:
MedEasy’s efficiency means it enables doctors to treat 300 more patients per month.
We acknowledge, however, that our MedEasy technology has been specifically tailored to meet the needs of one specific NGO’s mobile clinic in a Cambodian context. This means that, as is, MedEasy may not be suitable for use in any other context. This is why our team has, with the help of its ample experience, created three further versions of MedEasy to tailor our technology to as many different people as possible. These are three versions of MedEasy:
- MedEasy - this version exists only in a digital format. It can be freely shared under the specification of the licenses aforementioned, and it is meant for those clinics or environments in which the user has the access to the components necessary and the know-how to build MedEasy. With the help of our guidance, these users can build their own version of a MedEasy completely for free.
- MedEasy U - this is a non-specialised, universal MedEasy kit, including both software and hardware. It is meant for those small clinics or NGOs who would benefit from a mobile EMRS, but that do not necessarily need a highly tailored system. For a small implementation fee, and an even smaller yearly maintenance fee, these clinics can enjoy all the goodness of the MedEasy EMRS without having to do any work.
- MedEasy Pro - this version must be ordered well in advance, for it is a professional, tailored MedEasy system. When requested, our team will travel to the site of the clinic/NGO, and will carry out an in-depth sociological and anthropological study of the setting; the data collected will be used in the development of a MedEasy that is perfectly suited to the needs of the user. This version is thought for those clinics with a high volume of patients, or for use in refugee camps, makeshift hospitals or highly vulnerable environments.
MedEasy has been developed by the Student Innovation and Global Health Technology organisation at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
(Some features are still in development and the final product may differ from the information presented above - contact us directly for the latest information)