Call for Applicants

The Call for Applications has now closed. This year we received more than double the number of applicants we could have participate. After much deliberation, the contest committee has now selected five teams of eight participants, that are made up of young professionals from 14 countries and every continent in the world.

Teams have now begun working together on developing their solutions to this year’s contest problem. We look forward to seeing their end results when they present at the 2013 IEEE GHTC!

Good luck to all the teams, and thank you to all that applied to be apart of this year’s contest!

Problem Title:

Rural District Health Office Data Connectivity and eHealth Record System

Problem Description:

Lack of mechanisms for sharing information and data between remote health providers and central health facilities, hospitals and ministries is a significant obstacle when tracking outbreaks of disease and getting appropriate treatments and medicines to those who need it most. The issue is further intensified due to the sporadic keeping of health records and tying these to treatment regimens and their impact. When individuals are displaced by natural, man-caused disasters or diaspora, it is vital for NGOs and Governments to quickly assess the healthcare needs of refugees and be able to deliver appropriate treatments — especially for those with chronic diseases. By improving communication to rural health offices and implementing an eHealth records system, access to treatment protocols can be improved and allow healthcare workers to monitor health trends, and share results of treatments. For the 2013 GHTC Young Professionals Project Competition, teams are asked to develop a detailed engineering design specification that outlines the scope of their project, the technical and social problems as they see it, and their proposed solution approach. Teams will need to take into consideration as part of their design:

• Two way transmission of data (i.e. upload, download)
• Batching of data for daily transfer
• Systems for emergency/outbreak alerts
• Providing less expensive service and higher bandwidth
• Creating maps of existing connectivity
• Using intermediate field offices as data relay points
• Low power usage systems to operate at sites with limited generation capacity
• Creating secure, confidential ID for patients
• Emergency response and chronic care applications for eHealth records
• Ensuring eHealth records are useful for routine care for migrant populations.

As part of their project work, teams will need to:

• Define the scope of their project.
• Conduct any analysis and design relative to their project.
• Develop and present a project plan.
• Identify the technology and technical solution being proposed by their project.
• Provide applicable R&D information, manufacturing/distribution issues, costs, etc.
• Be prepared to defend the design and discuss the immediate and strategic functional, installation or implementation considerations.