MedTouch: Towards the development of smartphone-based software solutions for health care self-management

Abstract

Health care systems around the world today suffer from a number of critical challenges. These include increasing health care costs, declining number of health care professionals, and a growing number of old and frail people that require medical support but lack ability to self-manage their medication compliance. Although several health care solutions exist in the market today, most of them only enable the patients to keep track of their general fitness or provide information on medical issues. None of them focus on providing a personalised health care management system that bridges the gap between patients and their health care providers. We present MedTouch — a smartphone-based software application that enables patients to manage their vital statistics information, medical prescriptions including reminder alarms, transmission of medical information to health care providers including photographs, and application settings. We designed and developed this application iteratively using Scrum software development method in close collaboration with a representative from Orion Health — a global software company providing health care system solutions. We also conducted functional testing and usability evaluations followed by further refinements to the system.