IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 37

om mu n it y-base d
healthcare is increasingly important for
the well-being of
inhabitants of emerging economies. The community
model is needed partly because
roads are less developed, limiting
patients' ability to commute from
distant villages to central medical facilities [1]. Also, developing
countries have a large rural population base. Some estimates are
that rural agriculture employs 75%
of the population in developing
countries [2].
It is difficult at times for community-based healthcare workers in developing countries to
access medical records of individual patients in the field if the
records are maintained and stored
at a central health facility. In some
instances, individual patients must
keep their own paper-based medical record and carry it with them
to the central medical facility for
follow up visits and treatment.
This type of system can be unreliable, cumbersome, and susceptible to human errors. Consistent
medical histories of individual
patients can easily be lost leading
to errors in diagnosis, medication,
and treatment. At best, there are
cost and efficiency implications. At
worst, it could put people's life at
risk. In order to overcome some of
these difficulties, a versatile central
electronic medical record system
that can be accessed by the community healthcare workers in the
field could prove useful.
We propose a radio frequency
identification (rFID)-based community e-health system where a
patient is given a "passive" rFID
card or an equivalent device
(such as a stylized bracelet in
accordance to the local custom)
and the community healthcare
workers are each given a mobile
rFID read/write device that can
also access the central electronic
medical record system. The technology is relatively simple but

the process to make it work well
in a real life situation is expected
to be complex. We studied how
to implement this model in such
a way that it is self-sustaining,
rather than relying on recurring
external funding, such as charitable support.
The solution proposed is by no
means exhaustive in its possibilities. We also propose some potential service enhancements and
address issues such as risk exposures and environmental impact. A
brief, quantitative example is also
given to illustrate the principles
of the basic solution with the support of appropriate computational
intelligence.

Goals for an
RFID-Backed Community
Healthcare System
The goal of an rFID-backed
community healthcare solution is
to enable easy and reliable identification of individual patients,
maintain more accurate medical
records, facilitate better healthcare, and enhance the quality of
life in communities that are remote
from a central medical facility. In
addition, it can also help to relieve
the workload pressure on the

Central
Medical
Facility
Community
Healthcare Workers
Rural
Inhabitants

Fig. 1. The hierarchical relationship
in a community healthcare system.

developing country are typically
1) the administrator and physicians
at the central medical facility, 2)
affiliated community healthcare
workers, 3) the patients and the
inhabitants in the immediate communities, 4) the equipment and
e-health recorder solution providers and 5) the wide area communication provider. These stakeholders
will have to derive value from the
system in order for the scheme to
be self-sustainable. The essential
hierarchical relationships among
the main constituents are the
central medical facility at the top
of the pyramid, which manages a
number of community healthcare
workers, who in turn look after a

Community-based healthcare
is increasingly important for
the well-being of inhabitants
of emerging economies.
central medical facility when it is
overcrowded and can increase revenue opportunities by broadening
the base of patients to include more
remote locations. It may also help
to improve the efficiency of the
central medical facility, allowing
it to focus resources on cases that
require more specialized attention
and care.
The key stakeholders in the
value chain of medical care in a

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2013

large base of inhabitants in the
rural community. See Fig 1. The
equipment and resource providers
are facilitators and horizontal platform enablers.
A sustainable community healthcare solution should be able to
simultaneously provide direct benefits to patients, ensure the wellbeing of the associated population,
create opportunities for community
healthcare workers, and streamline
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013