Development of a 3G Authentication Based Mobile Access of Health Records: A Mobile Telemedicine Application

As our country progresses in its aim to be a developed country by the Year 2020, the
field of Information and Communications Technology or ICT is fast becoming the
forerunner for the vision. The Internet is used in almost all aspects of life. As for the
communications sector, according to Global Mobile Subscriber Database December
2002 report, there are 8,814,700 mobile subscribers in Malaysia with an Annual
Growth of 16.6%. Withthe adoption of 3G-communication technology in the coming
years, compelling high speed services, reaching up to 2 Mb/s together with improved
security features would soon be possible.
Through these years in the mobile industry, the health sector has always been
neglected. Reason being, the technology could not support the application and it is
not so much of a revenue generating business compared to mobile games or sports
news. With globalization where the society is always on the move across borders,
together with degrading environment conditions and the need for time, instant health
services are becoming crucial. Looking into these conditions of mobile adoption and
health status, the author intends to develop a solution for a mobile telemedicine
application. Kevin Hung (2003) defines telemedicine as the utilization of
telecommunication technology for medical diagnosis, treatment and patient care.
Thus, the main aim of this project was to develop an application that could be used
for medical purposes. This project integrates the latest mobile telecommunication
technologies together with medical services with the idea of providing a highly
secured personalize medical system and database query as mobile handsets are
becoming a necessity to individuals. This would make updating and retrieving
medical health records hassle free, anytime and anywhere. This project has also laid
the groundwork for future expansion by incorporating the basic audio and video
streaming features.
This report accounts for all the concepts, design works and results of the mobile
telemedicine application that has been developed successfully.