Smartphones, laptops, iPads and global positioning systems help people connect and simplify their lives, but even with these tools, people cannot always connect with the help they need.
Medical help, in particular, can be hard to come by in rural areas where patients often have to drive long distances to receive medical attention. In Alabama there is only one hospital for every 557 square miles, and the lack of medical coverage has had a negative impact on the state's overall health.
Two professors, from Auburn University and the University of Alabama, have teamed up to find an answer to this problem. Rafay Ishfaq, assistant professor of supply chain management in the Harbert College of Business, and Alabama's Uzma Raja are using their backgrounds in logistics and business analytics to find a unique alternative to traveling long distances for medical care.
Ishfaq said the plan is to create a road map that will assist policy makers by identifying strategic locations in Alabama where telemedicine centers could be opened and operated.
According to Ishfaq, telemedicine is a healthcare delivery mechanism for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients where doctors and patients are separated by space.
Ishfaq said he believes telemedicine can be used to connect patients to doctors thousands of miles away.
"You can use technology to potentially connect local patients with specialists as far out as a cancer hospital in Houston or a heart specialist in New York City," Ishfaq said.
Telemedicine includes a growing variety of applications and services using two-way video, email, smart phones, wireless tools and other forms of telecommunications technology.
"In telemedicine, patients are mediated through information and communication technologies," Ishfaq said. "The use of telemedicine is typical in regions with large and dispersed rural population, much like in Alabama, where geographical, economical and cultural barriers have resulted in misdistribution of hospital-delivered healthcare services."
Ishfaq believes many chronic health issues in rural communities stem from patients not receiving the correct post-operative care and regular monitoring. Ishfaq also noted that doctors will not travel long distances just to see one patient.
Ishfaq said once patients who live far away from the nearest hospital are discharged, they are seemingly on their own, which is where telemedicine is useful.
"Can you imagine post-operative care and the regimen that needs to be with a person with depression or a heart condition," Ishfaq asked. "They need regular monitoring. A specialist is not going to travel to a remote location to see his patient."
Ishfaq said he believes the solution to this healthcare problem is through incorporating logistics such as location and travel time as well as how many patients could be seen at one time.
The patients who find themselves far from medical care can now begin to count on telemedicine health centers throughout the states rural areas.
"You need to design that healthcare delivery system which incorporates logistical considerations. Where do you put your health care facilities? How far does a patient have to travel to get to that place? What would be the patient load at a facility that you don't overwhelm its resources?"
Business analytics techniques can be applied to identify heath care needs in particular areas.
"The rural communities of the Black Belt region have specific healthcare issues," said Raja. "The ability to accurately predict the demand of healthcare services is critical while designing the rural healthcare infrastructure."
Ishfaq and Raja used census data for county-level demographics and health survey data from U.S. Center for Disease Control.
Ishfaq said they would use the estimates and build on top of the logistical issues as they do in supply chain management and sees no reason why the techniques of supply chain management cannot be used for healthcare services.
Raja said big data collection, storage and access has opened doors to "new research opportunities."
Ishfaq said he believes there's two elements to telemedicine service and believes their research has paved the way for providing economically viable human healthcare.
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