“In Ghana, where we can have up to 7,000 patients per physician, traditional health care visits alone aren’t enough to help people manage chronic conditions like hypertension,” mentioned Valencia Koomson, entrance row 2nd from proper, with collaborators in Ghana. Credit score: Valencia Koomson
The AHOMKA platform, an leading edge cellular app for patient-to-provider verbal exchange that was once advanced via a collaboration between the College of Engineering and main scientific establishments in Ghana, has yielded sure ends up in assessments with sufferers at top chance for middle assault or stroke.
Over the process 8 weeks, the members’ reasonable blood stress readings diminished from 139/87 mmHg to a extra manageable 126/83 mmHg.
Greater than 70% of the sufferers on this pilot learn about constantly used the virtual device no less than weekly to measure their blood stress—knowledge that the app saved and shared with their medical doctors, in keeping with the researchers. The findings are printed within the Well being Sciences Investigations Magazine.
“In Ghana, where we can have up to 7,000 patients per physician, traditional health care visits alone aren’t enough to help people manage chronic conditions like hypertension,” mentioned senior creator Valencia Koomson, an affiliate professor {of electrical} and pc engineering. Moreover, 80% of all medical doctors are concentrated in 5 areas. The unequal distribution of medical doctors throughout Ghana limits the facility to fulfill the well being wishes of other folks dwelling in rural and far flung spaces.
“One of our priorities was to build a platform that could be accessible to a wide range of people within the country, from all different socioeconomic statuses,” she mentioned. “This meant AHOMKA needed to be functional without Internet access and be cost-effective.”
Koomson, whose analysis specializes in construction wearable sensors to assemble biometric knowledge, started the challenge in 2019 with the function of constructing units that might seize essential indicators correctly for other folks of all pores and skin tones and paintings in far flung telehealth settings.
She partnered with Ghanaian cardiologists on the Korle-Bu Educating Health center in Accra and the Ho Educating Health center in Ho to increase the AHOMKA cellular platform. “Ahomka” is a Ghanaian time period which means “good for the soul.” Along with tracking blood stress, Koomson and her collaborators sought after the app to lend a hand sufferers higher perceive the hazards of high blood pressure, cause them to really feel assured in taking blood stress readings, and remind them of wholesome conduct.
“Health literacy is an important part of this project,” Koomson mentioned. “There can be some stigma to having hypertension, as people don’t want to be perceived as not being strong, so we wanted to measure whether participants’ attitudes changed by learning more about high blood pressure and being part of the study.”
The analysis staff advanced the AHOMKA app for Android units, which, when used with an accompanying blood stress cuff, may retailer affected person knowledge without or with a Wi-Fi connection. The paintings was once accomplished in collaboration with well being era corporate Medtronic, which has supported identical initiatives in numerous African nations.
“One participant told us he had been struggling to control his blood pressure because clinic visits meant losing a day’s wages,” Koomson mentioned. “Through AHOMKA, his doctor could view his results and arrange follow-up tests at a facility closer to his home—completing a process in one month that typically takes a year.”
Because the trial expands from the present 27 sufferers, Koomson and her colleagues plan to make the AHOMKA app suitable with more than one cellular running programs. They’re additionally using a tool construction staff founded in Ghana that may cope with pressing problems sooner than possible roadblocks flip other folks clear of the platform.
Koomson envisions additional construction of AHOMKA may permit sufferers the usage of the app to add scientific data, corresponding to blood assessments, or communicate to chatbots about their well being issues. Plans to combine a textual content messaging gadget for sufferers with out sensible telephones to have interaction with AHOMKA are in construction. She additionally plans to create cellular platforms that improve other folks dwelling with sickle-cell illness, a painful blood situation this is commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa.
Additional information:
Frank Edwin et al, House-based blood stress tracking the usage of the AHOMKA care type: a longitudinal single-group pilot learn about in Accra, Well being Sciences Investigations Magazine (2024). DOI: 10.46829/hsijournal.2024.12.6.2.960-968. journals.ug.edu.gh/index.php/h … ij/article/view/2751
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