December 1, 2020
Dr. Vilmos Bilicki's team (Department of Software Engineering) has reached its next milestone in the Otolaryngology ENT (ear, nose, throat) project, which has successfully launched its clinical trials with patients recently. The tools and the software have also been released to two doctors who are already using them on patients with ear, nose, or throat pain (ENT).
What was the motivation to create a software to help these patients?
With an Otolaryngology ENT (ear, nose, throat) problem, patients must often travel for hours to a specialist facility where they are forced to wait for long periods of time due to low capacity. High attendance at these institutions increases the chance of viruses spreading, thereby putting the patient's recovery at risk. Integrating technology into this supply process allows for patient care to be done remotely.
Let’s look into the system of this project:
With their complaint, the patient visits their practitioner, who registers them, enters their anamnesis with the help of pre-written questions, and records a short video of the patient’s ear with a special mobile otoscope attached to their smartphone camera.
If the recording is in a good quality, the system selects the recipient care team and uploads the test for them and then tracks its status. This way, the patient can wait for the results of the specialist’s examination at home, instead of traveling.
Care team members are notified by email when a new test is received.
The specialist receives the video-based diagnosis and the anamnesis, and makes a treatment recommendation to the examining doctor. In the event of a faulty video, instructions can be provided to the examining physician, who may then repeat the examination.
The practitioner will be notified by email when the results arrive, after which the patient can get the medical treatment based on the specialist's evaluation.
The benefits on the patient’s side:
- Less travelling
- Faster treatment
- Less contact with others
The benefits on the doctors’ side:
- Less stress
- More time for more severe cases requiring intervention
- Collecting educational content through anonymised recordings
Watch a short demonstration of the app below: