Guiding Ebola Patients to Suitable Health Facilities: An SMS-based Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents an SMS-based system that allows Ebola patients to report symptoms, receive guidance on suitable health facilities, and helps predict disease outbreak risks using mobile technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel SMS-based approach for symptom reporting, health facility guidance, and outbreak prediction in Ebola management.

Findings

Effective symptom classification from text messages

Improved prediction of disease outbreak risk

Enhanced patient guidance to appropriate health services

Abstract

We propose to utilize mobile phone technology as a vehicle for people to report their symptoms and to receive immediate feedback about the health services readily available, and for predicting spatial disease outbreak risk. Once symptoms are extracted from the patients text message, they undergo complex classification, pattern matching and prediction to recommend the nearest suitable health service. The added benefit of this approach is that it enables health care facilities to anticipate arrival of new potential Ebola cases.