icegov2012 proceedings

Cloud
Data
Center
Internet
Service
Provider
(A)
Link Load Balancer
Physical
Link
VPN Link
Link Load Balancer
Physical Link
VPN Link
Link Load Balancer
Internet
Service
Provider
(B)
Rural Healthcare
Center – 1
LAN
Database
Server
Application
Server
Rural Healthcare
Center – 2
LAN
Database
Server
Application
Server
Figure 3. Connectivity between cloud data center and rural
healthcare centers
4.3 Use of Open Source Software
Different modules responsible for storing and processing patient
data are being implemented using MySQL, PHP, Apache, running
on virtual machines managed by Open Nebula [10]. We are also
considering ANEKA as the middleware for cloud computing [11].
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this work the need for an information system to facilitate rural
healthcare has been highlighted. The proposed cloud based
solution is aimed at providing a cost effective way of dealing with
the patient information for remotely located areas in India. The
practical advantages of this solution are cost-effectiveness, ease of
deployment, availability of data for analysis anywhere on the
globe. Since availability of doctors with different expertise in a
single location, that to in rural areas, is not practicable; now with
the proposed cloud based solution it is possible to provide medical
assistance to remote patients without actually moving to those
locations. Further, doctors of established hospitals with better
facilities can remotely monitor critical patients, thus helping to
improve the quality of medical service even in rural areas. From
the software engineering perspective, the proposed design
promotes re-usability of services which are deployed at different
locations and has the capability to leverage different medical
institutes and research centres to use services through a SaaS
model. This also reduces investment on hardware and expensive
medical equipment and software licensing costs. Further the
patient data collected over a period of time can be used to build a
knowledge base of different diseases, affected areas, their causes
which can facilitate policy makers and researchers to take
remedial measures and plan for disease control.
405
In this work we have not addressed the issue of data security and
quality of service which is a challenging area of research in cloud
computing. We shall look into these aspects in future to improve
the performance and trustworthiness of the proposed healthcare
system. Further, as our next research agenda we shall explore the
use of mobile phones (which has a greater penetration in rural
India) to transmit data to database servers managed at the
provincial level. Further wherever possible, recording patient data
using sensors is yet another alternative to reduce the amount of
manual error during data entry. This can enable faster and direct
transfer of data to the cloud infrastructure for diagnosis and expert
advice in case of critical patients.
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