The Tuft University School of Engineering partnered with leading medical institutions in Ghana to increase healthcare accessibility.
According to a release, there aren’t enough doctors in Ghana, so hypertension patients don’t always receive the care and diagnoses they need. To change this, the collaborators designed the AHOMKA platform, an app for Android devices, that helps patients monitor their blood pressure, communicate with a healthcare provider, and increases health literacy. Medtronic helped develop AHOMKA. Additionally, the app can “store patient data with or without a Wi-Fi connection” if it is “used with an accompanying blood pressure cuff.”
AHOMKA helped patients manage their blood pressure in a study published in Health Sciences Investigations Journal. The majority (70%) of participants “used the digital tool at least weekly to measure their blood pressure.” A satisfaction survey found that patients preferred the telehealth method.
