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iDoc

Integrated telemedicine system

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Membership level

2020-2021 Team

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Team Name

iDoc

Project Title

Integrated telemedicine system

Design Challenge

Much of the hardware and software used in telemedicine rely heavily on a high-speed WiFi connection and access to a smartphone or a computer. However, 58% of rural residents in the US struggle with access to the Internet, and 58% of the elderly population above the age of 65 do not own a smartphone. Our team, iDoc, is developing a telemedicine communication device with an intuitive user interface and LTE connectivity to enable high-quality telemedicine visits for the elderly and rural populations.

Design Summary

The mission of our team is to design a telemedicine solution that will enable elderly and rural populations to access high-quality virtual healthcare. Such an integrated solution broadly requires three functional components: the patient device, the physician interface, and the communication framework.

Our design of the patient device is based on the Samsung S5e tablet. It is a commercially available tablet that readily supports a high-quality video-conferencing experience over a LTE network. It can capture videos at more than 640 ✕ 360 resolution and 10 frames per second and transmit data with a bandwidth upto 300 Mbps over an LTE network. The tablet provides the hardware foundation of our design. The patient will receive the tablet pre-installed with the application and pre-configured in kiosk mode, where the only software running is our telemedicine application. This transforms the tablet into a dedicated telemedicine communication device, sparing the user the need to manage different applications on a tablet.

Our telemedicine application features a minimalist design. It only displays the appointment time and the doctor’s information. When the scheduled appointment time approaches, it will send an audible alert and display a button to begin the virtual appointment. Only displaying the essential information avoids overwhelming the patient, and having only a limited number of control elements constrains the user. Instead of digitally authenticating the patient, which introduces additional complexity, our platform builds upon the traditional model of clinical workflow. When a patient connects to their virtual appointment, they are first checked in by a clinical staff or nurse who will verify the patient’s identity before connecting them to their doctor. This effectively frees the patient from username and password management without compromising security or burdening providers with tasks beyond their existing responsibilities.

In addition to the patient device, a complete telemedicine platform includes a physician endpoint and a communication framework. We developed a web application for physicians. The web application is a scheduler that allows physicians to view their upcoming appointments with different patients and create new appointments. It is designed to be functionally similar to existing platforms such as Doxy.me and Epic to ensure smooth integration into clinical workflow. For the communication framework, we launched an EC2 virtual machine with Amazon Web Services and implemented a Parse server on the virtual machine as the backend of our services. The Parse server enables crosstalk between physician and patient applications and manages the storage and transmission of data in a scure, HIPAA-compliant environment.

Last updated: 05/01/2021