ABSTRACT

This project researches on how telemedicine can enhance healthcare delivery for diabetics in Ghana, and based on the findings, builds a technological tool to help diabetics track the level of sugar they consume. Using the Korle-Bu Diabetic Centre as a prototype, a session was conducted to observe activities at the centre, and an interview with the Director of the department was held to gain insight into the state of the hospital. 50 patients were also interviewed to find out how often and why the visit the centre. The interviews revealed that the main purpose of patients’ visit to the Korle-Bu Diabetic Centre was to check blood sugar levels, and this showed low levels of self-management among patients. My research showed that telemedicine could be used as tool for remote consultation, electronic record keeping and for self-management of chronic diseases Based on these findings, this project built an application to improve self-management of diabetes by allowing patients to track the amount of sugar they consume in their daily meals. The app also facilitates remote consultation and electronic record keeping. This app contains a large database of the nutritional values of Ghanaian foods and is built specifically for the Ghanaian community. In the long run, the app will be developed further to allow connections with devices such as the fitbit which track weight gain and loss, and heartbeat rate. This will enable the user to get more holistic data and reassurance that the figures being computed are indeed right.