Implementation of a Geographic Information System-Based Smartphone Application for Health Vigilance in Older Adults by Village Health Volunteers (OSOMO).

Abstract

This paper mainly studies the smartphone application for health vigilance in elderly adults, based on geographic information system (GIS) for village health volunteers (OSOMO in Thai) to monitor elderly's health. Eight areas from 4 provinces of 7th health territory (Roi Et, Khon Kaen, Maha Sarakham, and Kalasin) were employed for research. The smartphone application called "OSOMO Prompt" was created for both iPhone (iOS) and Android devices for 1,246 OSOMOs. The comparison results of the difference of mean scores of knowledge of before and after using the "OSOMO Prompt" smartphone application, showed that the trial group, 240 elderly participants had the mean scores after smartphone application use of 1.69, higher than before use smartphone application. The results also indicated a statistically significant difference (p-value < .001) at 95%, confidence interval between 2.15-1.22. In conclusion, the "OSOMO Prompt" smartphone application was proved as a tool for village health volunteers to make health decision for the elderly persons. Moreover, the system was easy to use and could improve the quality of the elderly's healthcare.