O2O Clinic: A Telemedicine Service
Bring In Gynaecologists to Rural Areas
Rural areas in Taiwan have been lacking in medical resources, especially certain specialists like paediatricians, obstetricians, and gynaecologists are rarely found. In some districts of Taitung, one of the most impoverished counties in Taiwan, people need to drive more than three hours to downtown hospitals, just because their local clinics are too small to employ specialists they need to see.
With obstacles such as long journeys to hospitals and unstable finical situations, people in rural areas usually neglect their medical needs, not to mention accept regular examinations — which leads to lower health literacy and higher mortality rate, especially for women and babies.
Compared to Taipei, The average household income in Taitung is only 49%
An obstetrician in Taitung delivers an average of 92.7 babies per year, whilst the number is down to 48.2 in Taipei
Hualien and Taitung, the two rural counties in Eastern Taiwan, take up 2 places of the top 3 counties in Taiwan with the highest mortality rate of babies, hitting up to 7‰
There are only 2 hospitals capable of severe first aid in Eastern Taiwan (Hualien and Taitung), which is 300 kilometres long
Local Clinics: Basic But Widespread
However, we also found that people in remote areas highly rely on “local clinics”, including personal clinics, public health centres, and other related local medical institutions. Given the national policy that every town requires at least one public health centre, those local clinics are spread out densely and are easily accessible, and people are used to making appointments there when falling slightly ill. The only problem is that those clinics offer merely basic check-ups, lacking in specialists and specific medical equipment.
Widespread and Accessible × Neighborhood Friendly
(+ Basic Medical Treatments Only)
Sufficient Resources for Gynaecologists
Since there are clearly enough local clinics, why not put specialists there? — With this idea in mind, we further checked the medical resources in local clinics, especially the public health centres under the central system, and found that they actually have all the basic equipment a regular health check-up needs, such as X-ray and ultrasonography,and that they even share the same e-system.
Meanwhile, some practices, for example, gynaecology, do not require lots of advanced medical equipment. Gynaecological examinations, in fact, are mainly body fluid tests and vaginal examinations, which are both available with the equipment in public health centres. Besides, gynaecologists also encourages women to do regular examinations. All of these make gynaecology an ideal practice to collaborate in depth with local health clinics.
We identified the main idea of this project via in-depth interviews of different stakeholders, including a woman living in rural areas, a doctor and a staff working in the local clinic, and a gynaecologist working in urban areas.
O2O Clinic
To close the gap between gynaecologists and patients in rural areas, we came up with the solution – O2O clinic – derived from telemedicine. With O2O clinic, patients visit local clinics and see two doctors at the same time: one doctor in person (offline) at the local clinic, and one gynaecologist located in the city, consulting via video call (online).
Through collaboration between two doctors, patients can get professional consultation from specialists, as well as full physical examination and fluid collection from local doctors in person. This can all be done in a clinic nearby where patients are familiar with.
Let’s See How It Works
Pre-Appointment: Online Forms
Patients can make an O2O clinic appointment on our app; at the same time, they should fill out forms about their medical histories and current health concerns to simplify the consulting process.
During The Appointment: Consultation Via Video Call, Check-ups In Person
Just like any appointment, patients go to clinics nearby and meet the local doctor in person, while the gynaecologist joins online via video call.
The gynaecologist leads the consultation and makes a list of examinations they consider necessary; meanwhile, the local doctor will conduct those examinations, and report their findings to the gynaecologist.
Both doctors can easily co-edit the communication process and exchange information with our web-based system through browser.
After The Appointment: Final Diagnosis
If the doctors ordered fluid test during the appointment, the gynaecologist can record the final diagnosis online after the results come out for the local doctor to read and approve. Patients can then view their test results and diagnosis through the app to decide the next move.
Patient to Doctor
Video Call Consultation With Specialists
Simplified Process With The app
X
Doctor to Doctor
Collaborate Through
Web-based System
App For Patients: Online Scheduling, Appointments and Reports
With the app, patients are able to view the timetable for O2O clinic, make appointments, fill out medical forms for doctors and check test reports as well as their medical diagnosis. This way, they no longer need to wait in line for appointments, or go to clinics in person just to pick up reports.
Meanwhile, doctors can obtain patients’ medical information in advance, which simplifies the consultation process.
Web-based System for Doctors: Video Call and Collaborate
In our web-based system, both the local doctor and the specialist can start a video call, view patients’ information and medical reports, co-edit diagnosis and medical records, upload/download files such as X-ray images and so on. The collaboration system makes real-time O2O clinic more convenient.
Besides, the specialist can make a list of examinations for the local doctor to carry out — this way, patients are able to access both professional evaluation and advice from specialists as well as necessary check-ups in the local clinic.
Efficient and Helpful
All in all, our O2O clinic service brings in gynaecologists to rural areas virtually, breaking free of the constraint of distance and resources.
During our trial runs, we got positive feedback from users living in rural areas – on one hand they feel that the app’s e-system is much more convenient than the current medical process, and on the other hand, the O2O clinic process with professional specialists joining online at familiar local clinics makes them relaxed and feel reliable.
On the other spectrum, both local doctors and gynaecologists agreed that the O2O clinic service is feasible (as long as the local clinics and hospitals in city come to an agreement.) They believed the new process may encourage rural residents to visit doctors more frequently when necessary, which would benefit the overall health level in remote areas.
Duration
2021/04 – 2021/06
Instructor
Dr. Neng-Hao Yu
Team Leader
Hsin-Ming Chao
Team Members
Chien-I Chao, Hsien-Chang Chen, Feng-Hua Chen
My team devised this service in the course Fundamentals of Interaction Design (II), which was under NTUST Design. The topic of this product design challenge was proposed by Rice Tseng, the principal product designer at Grab.
# Personal contribution: team lead, user research plan, storyboard story, service development, service flows, information architecture, app UIs & prototype