Portable Medical Diagnostic Computer For Rural Health Care in Developing Countries
1970 - 1978

How the System Works

Goals:
Do only what is realistically possible in the environment
based on available existing economic and human resources.
Hopefully this may be increased over time.

Preparation and Planning:
Step 1
Define the limited available economic resources.
Define the limited available human resources.
Define the limited required training for the human resources.

Step 2
Define the limits on the health related facts that can be gathered.
Define the limits on the actions and therapies that can be undertaken.

Step 3
Define and prepare forms upon which the gathered health related facts are to be recorded. The forms are composed of apha-numeric text, graphic images, and numeric codes.

Step 4
Define and prepare a printed action and therapy manual containing lists of numerically coded actions and therapies to be undertaken.

Step 5
Each disease description along with it's treatment is referred to as a "health action set".
Define and store each health action set in the computer.
Each health action set is composed of numeric codes identifying specified health related facts connected with the associated numeric codes that identify specific actions and therapies that are to be undertaken.
The health related facts are logically organized by using operative commands such as “and”, “or”, “nand” and “nor” to create meaningful health action sets.

For example, each health action set might contain: facts that must all be present; either one group or another group of facts that must be present; or certain facts that must not be present.

Enter the Patient's facts:
Gather and record health related facts for a patient on the displayed forms.
Enter the numeric coded information for gathered health related facts into the computer.

Computer process:
The computer compares the numeric coded information for the patient's gathered health related facts to the numeric coded information in each health action set stored in the computer.
The computer identifies each health action set that is represented in the patient's gathered health related facts, and then
Prints out the associated numeric coded information identifying the specific actions and therapies that are to be undertaken.

Treat the patient:
1) Manually locate the printed action and therapy coded information in the action and therapy manual.
2) Provide the treatments according to the action and therapy manual.

Portable Medical Diagnostic Computer For Rural Health Care in Developing Countries 1970 - 1978

How the System Works

Portable Medical Diagnostic Computer For Rural Health Care in Developing Countries
1970 - 1978