AB156. SIGHT—a telemedicine initiative

Background: Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face numerous barriers towards accessing basic healthcare. This is exacerbated by resistant educational, social, and economic issues that persist within rural areas. Such is seen in the Sri Ramakrishna Village of Haputale, Sri Lanka. The living population reside in mountainous regions with minimal infrastructural development and work laborious tea production jobs. Long distances to healthcare facilities, combined with familial and work duties, result in villagers neglecting themselves and prevent access to the distant healthcare services to begin with. To tackle this issue, the Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT) group at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology provided a student platform to create potential solutions for the Sri Ramakrishna Village. One project was the HapuTele project, a telemedicine initiative, aiming to connect villagers with doctors through a single platform. In a global health context, telemedicine is a powerful tool which unifies physical and economic barriers by providing universal access through a digital medium.

Methods: A low-code platform was leveraged to rapidly develop a scalable application tailored to local needs, seamlessly unifying consultations, data handling, and prescriptions into a single platform. A low-code approach facilitated rapid adaptations, addressing user feedback and local conditions, such as simplifying interfaces and automating prescriptions to comply with Sri Lanka’s regulatory requirements. Literature Review prior to on-sight implementation also suggested further social and educational barriers would be experienced. Thus, collaboration with local non-government organizations (NGOs) was necessary for translation and overcoming implementation barriers.

Results: Despite the deployment of a digital platform, on-sight implementation indicated a digital platform to only be one of several components that needed to be addressed. Further issues such as additional information technology (IT) training, internet infrastructure, and social barriers were also key aspects that had to be addressed. Certain software design choices also faced unexpected resistance and required workarounds.

Conclusions: HapuTele’s deployment highlights telemedicine’s potential to bridge healthcare access gaps in LMICs. However, it also reveals the complexities of implementing technology-driven solutions in resource-scarce settings. All new settings possess unique challenges and barriers to overcome, with many being technology-adjacent. The implementation of simpler digital solutions can act as a strategy to improve global health equity. Projects like HapuTele help to bring awareness to students and locals on the significance of preserving health under different contexts. Furthermore, such projects require continuous support and patience in order to overcome the many barriers that have resulted in these health disparities.

Keywords: Healthcare; telemedicine; low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)