Designing and Producing a Telerehabilitation Mobile Application and a Web-Based Smart Dashboard for Online Monitoring of Patients at Risk of Stroke During COVID-19 Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

Introduction: Millions of patients suffer from stroke every year, and it is very important for physiotherapists to keep in touch with patients through models that provide physiotherapy over a distance, especially at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. One key topic within the realm of provision of distance physiotherapy services is "TeleRehab" technology, short form for telerehabilitation. Moreover, the analysis of the gathered stroke data needs business intelligence (BI) technologies, which can help to gain insights into risk factors and improve medical decision-making. Methods: This research consists two sections: (a) an online web-based intelligence dashboard was implemented, which provides analyzing the clinical data of 1219 patients and investigating risk the factors of ischemic versus hemorrhagic stroke; and (b) designing a mobile application that can be run on both Android and iOS operating systems, which was successfully tested, as an TeleRehab solution. Results: The designed intelligence dashboard was equipped with a geographical information system (GIS) system that provided the possibility for the analysis of stroke status in any geographical location and discovering the relationships between patient-related contributors in each type of stroke. Conclusions: Both of these products can help patients undergoing medical rehabilitation, especially during COVID-19 conditions. The TeleRehab program is considered as a facilitator, especially at this time when keeping a social distance is necessary, to prevent exacerbation of patients’ complications and reduce the work burden on health personnel. The intelligence dashboard also provided a user-friendly tool for the analysis and running of queries about stroke for decision-making.