2014 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference - South Asia Satellite (GHTC-SAS) | September 26-27, 2014 | Trivandrum
Customer Feedback-based Healthcare Facilities’Identification Using Location Based Computing Technology Md. Khademul Islam
Dr. Hafiz Abdur Rahman
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department North South University Dhaka, Bangladesh.
[email protected]
Associate Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering Department North South University Dhaka, Bangladesh.
[email protected]
Abstract—Finding
a suitable and appropriate hospital in an emergency medical situation is an important issue for general people of Bangladesh. For newcomers in an area, having hospitals’ details of the surrounding can actually help them to find desired hospitals. People can select hospitals by quality and price. Location based services can help general people to find suitable hospitals in an unknown area. Additional information of hospitals like costing, availability of beds, ratings, etc. can enhance our project features. Location based services are special features of android application. Distantce Calculation from current place, database information of the hospitals and peoples’ rating regarding the hospitals can help general people to take right decision for selecting hospitals.
Keywords— Android, Maps, Location Based computing. I. INTRODUCTION One of the basic rights of human being is to get medical services. Bangladesh is an over populated country where standard of medical services is underdeveloped. In the time of emergency when people seek information of the hospitals, it becomes very difficult to find them. Another matter of concern is lack of user participation for the ranking of hospital. Depending on the few essential questions, rating of the hospitals can have precise information. We need to ensure proper information flow. New mobile technology can play a vital role in this issue. Location based technology in Android handset has been available for quite sometimes, but no reported use in Bangladesh. According to BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) mobile phone users in Bangladesh is 95.53 million. A huge percentage of them are using Internet through mobile devices. This number is increasing day by day. So, we wanted to provide Hospital related information to the mobile users with specified application. User participation for ranking the hospital to evaluate the performance of the
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hospitals is another focus of this project. We made a prototype to validate our idea for the information flow of hospitals. We focus on the service issues of mobile devices. In recent days, lots of local services are focused by android application. If we assume any mobile user in Bangladesh, one can rarely get local information of public utility services by mobile application. We concentrated our vision to the medical services of Bangladesh. Here we do not have any standardized rating process for hospitals. People do not have any idea of rating a hospital and share their ratings with others. Daily use of such rating methods by general public could further improve healthcare services. No international hospital rating system is in use here in Bangladesh. Another problem is to find hospitals easily and also to know the distance between the hospitals from the users‟ current location. Hospital database values like available beds, ICU beds, costing is also very important for the upcoming user. These issues are solved in this project. Our focus is to develop a total package for our healthcare system to improve its quality and superior use. We used android platform to make our prototype application. In our work, we tried to make a prototype for location based services on hospitals of Bangladesh. We approached with a web service including an android application to make this easy for the consumers. II. Related work: On medical service, several of android applications ensure health stability, managing good health and disease recognition [9]. User can make review in android maps application for their hospitals through mobile. International Healthcare Commission has created a standard rating process of the hospitals [11]. This standard rating method is not followed in many countries including Bangladesh.
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A. Location Based Services: Finding own location: Location based service like finding own location by using android devices is very common feature. Lots of applications are there to find the users current location. The program started by adding the uses-permission tag for Internet access to the application manifest. Also import the Android maps library within the application tag. After that the public class name should be MapActivity and map API must be used accordingly, geocoder class in android ensures a great location based service for its user. It translates between the streets address and latitude/longitude map coordinates. Geocoding lookups are done in the server. The Internet usespermission in our manifest[10]. Forward gecoding converts the address into latitude and longitude. The reverse Geocoding converts the latitude and longitude to corresponding address.
III. System Architecture A. Problem Definition Main problem is to find the hospitals easily and also know the distance between the hospitals and users current location. Hospital database values like available beds, ICU beds, costing is also very important. Hospital is crucial as people need that place on crisis time. Right decision can change one life and can secure human body from diseases. Our focus is to develop a total package for our healthcare system to improve its quality and superior use using location based computing. We used an extensive methodology for implementing our application. Here we will discuss in brief the major methods of our prototype project. Our proposed model for the hospitals of Bangladesh is given below:
B. Location Aware Technology: Location aware systems of doctors, patient, laboratory information are very important for circulation. WLAN can play a vital role here [2]. A location aware hospital system is proposed here using handheld computer. A neural network is working behind this mobile application. Finding the current location of doctors, passing information about the reports is possible by this application. Finding the path from a place to place can be found and KML route [1] file can be taken from google. So, navigation towards a specific place can be done by this. Wireless network is also used to find locations like Banks, Markets, gas station including navigation. Nokia API also provides the platform to work with GPS system. There are some application in Nokia devices with location updated information and showing the market density and other information. We found some examples of location based technology with Nokia platforms here [8].Important work has been done with SOS android apps that show near hospitals, taxi place, food place etc, it also give massage sending option and call option to the necessary place[12]. There are also some examples in google play store, related to hospital based services. „Hospital Near by‟ application shows the hospitals of certain place and also the distance between the hospitals. It has the option to make direct call to the hospitals. It shows the customer feedback about hospitals. Ranking shows with points or Star. Hospitals and pharmacy finder will show the nearest pharmacy and hospitals. It will contain necessary phone numbers of the place.
Figure 1: Proposed Model of the Project We made only a prototype for our application, so we didn‟t have the database support from the hospitals. If we can integrate our web server to the web server of the hospitals, our proposed model will succeed. Our prototype or implemented part is given below:
US Hospitals Premium allow to search by service (service name or service category), get nearest hospitals by location (state, city or county). US Hospitals Premium can help one to find the closest hospitals at current location or at any US address mentioned.
Figure 2: Implemented part of the Project
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B. Project Data Model Given Figure 3, shows database scenario for hospitals in the webpage. Hospital entity has few attributes like lat, long hospital_name, hospital_id. Also, user entity has attributes like e-mail, name, age etc. This two has relationship through visit. Admin has two attributes. By access relationship it can access hospital table and user table of the database.
A average of eight significant question is added to [11] each hospital. Session is set for each page and MD5 password encryption for user login is used for web security purpose. In our Web server, we implemented the database for our application. User login is implemented. HTML is used to design the website. One can find our website by this link: http://thebtc.org/pilotproject/. We used PHP to connect database with the web. Database is created in MySql using XAMPP. We used JSON to connect the application to the database through PHP.
Rating methodology: We took five questions from the eight questions given by World HealthCare Commission. The average for is user will be shown in the bubble by “*” mark. The questions are given below: Patient Satisfaction. Overall Cleanliness. Medical Records. Safety. Nurse Staffing. Medical Staff. Medical Equipment. Hospital Information Management Systems
Figure 3: Entity Relationship for hospitals in website C. System Architecture: Web Service: Our initial target is to build a total package for our healthcare system. Primarily we develop a rating process for the hospitals. A website is developed for that purpose. Any user can login to the site and can rate hospitals. People can also visit the hospitals data including rating in this website. Rating questions is taken from the World Healthcare Commission.
Figure 4: Rating page in website
People can register in the website by this view. Figure 4 shows the rating page of the webpage. One person can rate one hospital once. This rank came through a simple mathematical process. When one user ranks one hospital, average is taken. Then that average is added to the total point and the user number is increased by one. Then hospital rank I taken by dividing total point by total number of visitor.
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𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 + 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤 = 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫 + 𝟏 𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤 =
Using Android application: We used android operating system as this is the most famous mobile operating system now days.[6] Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 86 hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices [4][5]. In the first approach we started with eclipse for android application development. In first step we collected finger print of the device. Then we submitted that in the website to collect our respective Maps API key. We used that on MANIFEST. After that we get the map view from the google. Our main activity is called the MapsActivity which extends MapActivity which is a built in class in android. We implemented locationListener class here. We implemented four built in method to implement this class. They are: OnLocationChanged OnProviderDisabled OnProviderEnabled OnstatusChanged Later we will discuss about the functions of these. In the main class there are two sub classes. They are: 1) Touchy (overlay) 2) Task (AsyncTask) For touching the specific point we used Touchy class. We extends overlay built in class in Touchy. We implemented popup menu here in Touchy class. Distance was an essential issue. Distance function is used for find the distance between the specific touch points to database given point. DistanceTo function was very useful for finding straight distance. Some other built in class was also used for various purposes like adding geocoder, toggle view. The name of those class is given below. They are built in class in Maps Activity Class:
GeoPoint Overlay OverlayItem Drawable String PopupMenu JsonArray
We also defined one class called GPSTrack. We used that to find user‟s own location by clicking on the GPS button. We used RequestLocationUpdates method to show the current location of the user.
We have made this prototype more attractive by adding database from web server. Overall database value transferred through the method in figure 5. JSON is used to connect this database to android application. Database initially is created using MySql. In the database, rating table will show rating provided by the users. Hospital table will convey the data of the hospital to the mobile application user. So, one can find his or her affordable and preferable hospital by this application. If we can integrate our database to the databases of the hospitals using API we easily can have the information about free bed number and ICU bed number. We can show blood bank details also by this. We assumed random values on that. Our prototype is for only Basundhara Area where our University is situated. We assumed 5 hospitals on that and all the information is also assumed. Authentic data can be found by developing the project further in the future. In the JSON part, database value is saved in the row wise manner with mysql_fetch_assoc function (PHP function). The mysql_fetch_assoc() function returns a row from a record set as an associative array. This function gets a row from the mysql_query() function and returns an array of success, or FALSE on failure or when there are no more rows. The function gives the result as associated array. Then the value is saved in the output array. Then we used JSON encode function to encode row wise. We convert the output to JSON array format. In the Task class DoInBackground function we take the http response from the PHP file in the web server then we take the JSON array in the response and save it in the result variable. Then we will take loop to have JSON object to show that to the client. We used httpResponse, httpPost and httpEntity here as a method. We also used bufferReader method in this part. Database Value
Input stream Reader String Builder Result
OUTPUT Array
Associated Array
Task Class (http Post, Http Response, Content)
JSON Array Encode
Figure 5: Database value transfer method In each hospital one Toast will show the information. SimpleItemizedOverlay class is connected to the main class and the custom pinpoint class also connected to the main MapsActivity Class. BallonIemizedOverlay is connected to the SimpleItemzedOverlay class. BallonOverlayView class is also connected to the BallonItemizedOverlay class. By double clicking we have popupmenu but this is for android level-11. Android API level 11 should be minimum to use this popupmenu. Figure 6, shows the class flow.
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MapsActivity
Touchy ()
Task (AsyncTask )
SimpleItemi zed Overlay
Custom Pinpoint
Figure 6: Class flow After launching our application it will automatically get real time location of the user. Figure 7 shows the area view of the selected place. After double clicking it will show the options for the user. If anyone clicks in find hospital tab it will show
Figure 8: Marking Hospital in the Surrounding
Figure 7: Area View of the selected location
Figure 9: Detail information of the hospital
the hospitals from the database. If we click on the bubble we can see bubble and the rating by the user in the bubble. User can choose his\her chosen hospitals from the list. Figure 8 shows hospitals in the surrounding.
4. Discussion: 6.1 User Feedback: We have showed this application to the common users of Bangladesh. They actually preferred the concept of having HIS (Hospital Information System) data and also the GPS back up for finding the hospital. They also liked the comparison approach of the hospitals. They also suggested few features which we will do in our future work. They suggested option based costing approach or details costing approach for the hospitals. They said this will make the decision easy to select the hospitals. Few users said about the navigational help in this application.
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4.2 Conclusion: In our application, we tried to make it easy to the user to find the hospitals, distance of the hospitals and the important data that could help users in their need. Our application and web service is a prototype to have medical information service to the user and we also wanted to rate the hospitals of Bangladesh. Rating could make it easy to the users to select right hospital on right time. Average costing will make it easy for a person to afford their treatment.
5. Future Work: We want to make this application more sophisticated by using more convenient options. Our future plan about this project is given below: Smoothness of the application Integrate hospitals database with our database to give real data to the user. Make our database for the whole city of DHAKA city. Navigation for the users would be very useful for further use. Traffic analysis will enhance the assumption of real distance of the hospital from the user. Cloud Computing Approach. Having live data from the hospitals to ensure proper information flow to the general user.
6. References: [1] CH. Radhika Rani,K. A. Praveen et al. „Location Based Services in Android‟ International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology, March 2012. [2] R.D. Marcela,F. Jesus, M.A. Edgar M.A. Miguel „Location-Aware Access to Hospital Information and Services‟. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BIOMEDICINE, VOL. 8, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004 [3] GPS URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS [4] Jerome(J. F.) DiMarzio, Android - A Programmer‟s guide, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 203_237,2010. [5] Chris Haseman, Android Essentials, firstPress, 9_17, 2008 [6] Android Operating System URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) [7] GPS Protocol by Leadtek Research Inc. [8] Nokia Application Reference: URL:http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Qt_ Maps_Examples [9] Application Referred: https://play.google.com/store/apps [10] Reto Meier, Professional Android 2 Application Development,Wrox, 247_264, 2010 [11] Rating Policy: IHC (International Healthcare Commission) Available:http://www.internationalhealthcarecommission.com /docs/ratings-system.html [12]. Pratyush Poddar, Karanveer Singh, Praveen Kumar. „Sos Android Application‟, International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology, Vol.2 - Issue 3 (March - 2013), eISSN: 2278-0181
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