e-ESAS: improving quality of life for breast cancer patients in developing countries

Abstract

In this paper, we present e-ESAS, a mobile phone based remote monitoring tool for patients with palliative care need, carefully designed for developing countries. Most of the current remote monitoring systems are complex, obtrusive and expensive resulting in a system unsuitable to deploy in low-income countries. We here describe evolution and performance of e-ESAS within the contexts of breast cancer patients as these patients require management of pain and other symptoms. Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) was developed to capture the important parameters where patients themselves report their level of ten symptoms. Our e-ESAS improves the current system by reducing visits by patients to clinics, providing more flexibility to both doctors and patients, improving the quality of data, accommodating doctors to fine tune interventions, and providing a convenient representation of data to doctors. User interface was designed according to feedbacks from users resulting in a UI with better performance. The system is intended to provide a platform for future research as large amount of real data is being accumulated from the deployment. The system demonstrates the feasibility of accessing quality health care through cell phones by rural, poor patients in developing countries. The system enables doctors to serve more patients as it saves time for doctors, requiring less time to view patient information.