Principal Investigator: Dr Bessie Malila
Telemedicine & Connected Care Research Group (TCC)
Digital health interventions have proved to be cost-effective and capable of bypassing traditional healthcare infrastructures and national regulations, more so in Africa where healthcare systems are characterised by a high burden of disease, shortage of skilled healthcare professionals and poor health infrastructures. Concerns over security issues, reliability, and lack of evidence for the efficacy of digital health interventions have led to reluctance by governments to integrate digital health interventions with healthcare systems. However, the need to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to implementation of several digital health solutions, driven by mobile and concomitant technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain.
Test beds also known as real-world environments or living labs, present opportunities develop, and evaluate novel digital health interventions that could help address some of the global healthcare delivery challenges. Implementation of digital health test beds is already underway in other parts of the world, but not in Africa. Using design thinking principles and the concept of engaged scholarship, while considering the challenges in African healthcare systems and making use of local and international collaborations, this project aims to develop a secure real-world digital health test bed infrastructure based on 5G and beyond mobile technologies, while leveraging artificial intelligence, blockchain for security and other emerging novel digital technologies. The test bed is expected to accelerate the translation of research results into practical interventions that can help strengthen African healthcare systems.
Aims and objectives
The aim of this research group is to implement a digital health test bed infrastructure that can be utilised as a platform for developing and evaluating novel digital health interventions supported by 5G and beyond mobile technologies. The project objectives include using design thinking and solution co-creation concepts to design the test bed infrastructure; implementing the test bed infrastructure using off-the-shelf mobile devices and open-source software; developing and evaluating novel digital health interventions, as well as evaluating emerging mHealth and telemedicine solutions; and investigating the concepts of virtual clinic and 5G smart hospitals.
