Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases

Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases 1. Introduction 1.1. Present Scenario Internet is the latest and the most powerful innovation of mankind. In present era of internet we used computer technology to solve our many problems. Today in every field we use computer technology from education, business, social networking to order a dinner or health check-up. Nobody knows from when human are start using medicine for cure themselves from illness. Many years ago when uncivilized human are lives in cave, deep forest they used various tree, plants leaves as medicine. They give their knowledge to the next generation. There is no MBBS doctors are available at that time. The anytime anywhere availability of Internet has made a great impact specially in-terms of reaching customers and making themselves aware of ones products base and services. (Roche, 2010) Going back 15 or more years, when hardly anyone had access to the internet; you would have had to go out to find a doctor for solving your health problems. But now, that the internet is available to many people, so people can visit a virtual doctor clinic. In todays modern society we have MBBS doctors, thousands of medicine for thousands of diseases. If we feel sick, we go to the doctors clinic and doctor diagnosis us, then prescribed some medicine and after taking medicine will fine within few days. But if you went out from your city or you go someplace, where you get sick and you dont have any doctor nearby. What you do then? In Africa there is only 1 doctor among 5000 people. Presently, Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. There are many places where people are dying because of some common diseases. Just some common medicine can help them. Now if I asked you What if you could visit a doctor, any time of day or night, without leaving your home and that doctor could review your history, diagnose your problem and also give you prescription? Now you are thinking how is it possible? Ok you need just an internet connection and computer and Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases onlinesoftware will do it for you. 1.2. Topic of the Project The Project is titled â€Å"Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases†. It will be a generic software package for a medical clinic. The system will be able to act as a web-based solution for medical symptom checker. It will prove to be asset for both the doctor as well as their patient. 1.3. Targeted Audience Target audience or user is one of the main concerns on how and why a system is been developed, who is going to use this system. The target users of Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine have been categorized into three types. 1.4. Problem Context Internet enthusiastic people want to use internet to solve their medical problems. But there is no good local site that can provide this kind of facility. This kind of website is perfect for them who dont have time to visit a doctors clinic for minor Where doctor is unable, we used this kind of technology to help people. Presently, There are only 54 doctors per 100,000 peoples in Africa. Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. In this country this kind of system will help people if it can be implemented. . 1.5. Rationale behind the System The following has highlighted some of the most common benefits of the â€Å"Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine† Because of the existence of the identified problems, there is a need for such project. This project consists of some on-line web application which provides guides to the patient. The system will be using advanced algorithm to design a virtual medical agent. The benefits gained from this project are: User can contact with doctor easily from their home or office. Doctor can easily manage their patient. Patient can gain medical knowledge from using this system. Smart Symptom checker can help patient anytime. 1.5.1. Proposed Solution Ø Patient who have some knowledge of using internet doesnt need to visit to doctor for common diseases life fiver, Pain, stomatitis etc. Ø It also helps community and skilled health workers, supported by automated assessment and treatment protocols, can rapidly expand the delivery of health care in developing countries Ø The spread of mobile phones and web services makes new models of healthcare delivery possible at everyones hand. Ø Proven technology will allow developing countries to leapfrog the knowledge gap between doctors and patients Ø User can learn about healthcare tasks from this system. Ø Doctor doesnt need to remember all the name of medicine and their purpose. Doctor can find details of a medicine just a click of a search button. Ø Ground-breaking but proven technology allows rapid development, review, and updating of complex automated guidelines by medical professionals without it intervention. 1.6. Benefits of the System Development and Implementation of such a system will bring in a lot of benefits for the business, its employees and its customers (both current and potential). These benefits can be classified into Tangible and Intangible which are discussed in details below:- Ø The system help doctor to make faster diagnosis. Ø Using medicine search engine doctor can get any medicine information with in a second. Ø Various medical tools like BMI calculator, symptom checker etc. will help doctor as well as patient to solve their problems easily. Ø System administrator can easily manage the system using content management system. Ø The system will use roles and permission levels, to maintain confidentiality of private data of administrator, doctor and patient. Ø Patient can use chat services to chat with doctor. Ø The presence of certain services offered by the system on the mobile web will also ensure that the system can be accessed from anywhere anytime. 1.7. Challenges Involved Developing a system such as this will involve a host of challenges for the developer. The major challenges can be classified under:- 1.7.1. Domain Challenges: Ø Data Gathering and Domain Analysis: Due to the developers unfamiliarity with the work-flow and the processes followed in the online Symptom Checker it will become a challenging task to develop awareness about the medical service domain. Ø Implementation of Customizability: The biggest challenge of developing a system like this is its implementation itself. There is high percentage of risk involved in development and implementation of a system like this. The main challenge is to understand the base concepts involved in designing and developing Smart Medical Diagnosis. The developer will also need to follow a modular and object oriented approach in developing this system for enhancing reusability, abstraction, encapsulation and polymorphism. Ø Content Management System (CMS): Understanding and Implementing a CMS integrated with a system like this will require the developer to design the complex architecture of the system in prior so that his/her concepts are clear regarding the control flow of the system and no module infringes each other. This will also require him/her to study existing CMS such as Joomla and Drupal and understand their architecture and working. Ø Database Designing and Normalization: Designing a database for a generic customizable system like this is challenge in itself. The fields and data types of the table along with the tables itself are not fixed or pre-defined. The developer needs to code keeping in mind user customization may need to create these database objects dynamically and hence needs to keep a scope for their creation and modification. Apart from this, there needs to be a big centralized database, which is capable of storing large amount of data and about a large number of entities. The relation between these large numbers of entities will be needed to be figure out and a complex normalization has to be implemented in designing a database like this. Ø Implementation of 3-Tier Architecture: In order to enhance scalability, performance, reliability and robustness of this system, the developer will need to implement 3-Tier architecture for developing this system which is a challenging task keeping in mind the size and complexity of the systems database. Ø Algorithm for Customizing the site and Symptom Checker: The developer will require to showcase solid understanding for logics and algorithms in order to develop the module where the administrative users can add or edit new pages, new symptom option where he/she will be able to add its name description along with the algorithm that will be followed for generating a definite result. 1.7.2. Technical Challenges: PHP: The system will require the developer to use advanced PHP functionalities like Personalization, Forum, Blog and Emailing which will be used in various modules of this system. Develop a PHP base application is harder as compare to develop same application in ASP.NET using visual studio. Visual studio generates code for you debug for you and its also save time. But PHP is challenge as compare to asp.net. Cause PHP doesnt have any IDE and very code you need to write it down in a text editor. Finding an error is also a head ace. But for learning purpose PHP is great. Thats the reason I chose PHP as main web development language. Web Based system: Making an interactive web based system is difficult. Implement a dynamic web site is harder than making a desktop application. We need to take care of network, client server, band width to make project successful. AJAX and JavaScript / jQuery: For designing an intuitive and dynamic interface so that users have a rich experience availing features like data entry assistance, error prevention, etc. The developer needs to have in depth knowledge of AJAX as well as JavaScript or jQuery. Implementation of AJAX is not easy task for a developer who is new to web development. I just know little PHP and HTML. It will be a challenge for me to implement Ajax in this project. AJAX makes web application fell like a desktop application. CSS: Most people who are new in web development cant able to understand how to lay out a page. They just try to drug and drop div, table using Dreamweaver or any HTML design tools with underrating the advanced concept of CSS. And ended up with Advanced Database Concepts with MYSQL: For designing such a complex database that the system requires the developer needs to have a concrete understanding of database concepts like Normalization, Query Optimization, Views, and Permissions. He/she should also require familiarity with MYSQL. MOBILE OPTIMIZATING : For optimizing the web application for mobile phones and handheld devices the developer needs to have extensive skills in WML, mobile web as well as an understanding of how to integrate WML with server side scripting technologies 1.8. Goals behind developing the System 1.8.1. Project goal â€Å"When people are sick, they must make critical decisions about when and where they should receive healthcare. Unfortunately, most people lack the medical knowledge needed to make these decisions safely. Online smart diagnosis is powered by a computer program that performs symptom triage. The goal of symptom triage is to decide when, and where, you should seek care when you have symptoms. Symptom triage does not replace a physician evaluation or make a diagnosis.† 1.8.2. Academic Goal Ø To recall and analyse and implement the understanding and concepts learnt in the complete course curriculum through various modules as well as on individual level and implement all of it in order to come out with a complete computing project of industry standard Ø To document and publish the deliverables professionally following the standards followed in industry. 1.9. Objectives of the System 1.9.1. Project Objectives Ø To come up with a complete automation solution for online symptom diagnosis. Ø To keep the design, architecture, implementation flexible so as to allow customization by the system administrator. Ø Optimize information presentation and service interface according to the capability of the device requesting it. Ø To use communication channels apart from HTTP like Email, SMS and WAP for supplying quality information and services to customers and company employees. Ø To ensure that the web is bug free and that it runs equally and efficiently on all browsers and platforms 1.9.2. Academic Objectives Ø The prime objective is to learn nitty-gritties of project management and project development lifecycle, implementing it in developing the system and gaining experience in it. Ø Learn Content Management System (CMS) Ø To learn and apply the various Web Development Methodology and Human Computer Interaction Design Principles to the system design. Ø Web accessibility Ø To learn and master the advance features of PHP, MYSQL and associated technologies. Ø To learn the internal work-flow and procedures that is followed medical diagnosis. 1.10. Success Criteria To determine whether the project is a success or a failure parameters such as the quality of application developed as well as the quality of project documentation will be analysed. The quality of application will include the degree to which requirement was fulfilled, the degree of user-friendliness of the system as well as the ability to run swiftly, consistently and error-freely on multiple browsers. 1.11 Scope and Functionalities of the System Scope limits the project. It defines where in the project the developer should call it stop. It determines to what extent the system will support functionalities and beyond what the system facilitates no feature or functionalities. 1.11.1. Functionalities to be implemented The functionalities to be incorporated into the system which in turn will decide the scope of the system have been classified into 3 categories on the basis of their complexity and exclusiveness. They are:- 1.11.1.1. Core Functionalities:. Ø Symptom checker is an automatic smart software agent that can ask question to patient about their problem and it analysis the problems and diagnosis the debases of the patient Ø Chat Services Patients can text chat with doctor. Ø Forum User can create, post delete thread in forum Ø Messaging User can send message to each other Ø CMS(Content management System) Admin can create update and delete pages. Ø Medicine search engine Doctor can use medicine search engine to know about works of a particular medicine Ø Registration of Doctor And Patient . Ø Patient Can upload his/her medical history. Ø Secure and configurable user access through individual user logins and passwords. Ø Users can change their password. 1.11.1.2. Enhanced Functionalities: Ø Design the virtual doctor using artificial intelligent Ø Video chat service Ø Create user blog Ø Full Mobile based services Ø Full customizing user profiling. 1.11.1.3. Special Functionalities Ø Various tool boxes for doctor BMI Calculator, BRM calculator, Body fat calculator. Ø Voice chat and VoIP 1.11.2. Scope of the Project This projects main aim is to give perfect medical information to the user through internet. It will save time and money of both doctor and patient. The patient who dont have the time to visit the clinic of the doctor for some common issue they can use this system. This kind of system already in market like virtual doctor, WEB MD, Online health, but none of them works on mobile platform. As Smart Medical Diagnosis also works on mobile platform, anyone with wap enable mobile with GPRS, EGDE or 3G can access his web services and get information about medicine and diseases. 1.11.2.1 Scope Limitation Ø Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases is an online application. Without internet this system doesnt work Ø WAP Based mobile not able to display the webpage Ø chat required high speed internet connection Ø Symptom checker may be diagnosis wrong if patient give wrong input Ø Serious medical problems cant be solved using this system Ø Only some common diseases can be diagnosis 1.12. Feasibility Study By the means of feasibility study one can find out if an information system project can be done, and if so, how. A feasibility study should answers the following question: Ø Whether the project can be done; Ø What are alternative solutions? Ø What are the criteria for choosing among them? Ø Is there a preferred alternative? After a feasibility study, a decision is taken on the go ahead/no go of the project. There are a many types of feasibility study that are used for analysis of Information System. In this project the developer has restricted the feasibility study to Technological Feasibility Study and Schedule Feasibility. 1.12.1. Technical Feasibility Study The technical feasibility study compares the level of technology available in the software development firm and the level of technology required for the development of the product. Here the level of technology consists of the programming language, the hardware resources, Other software tools etc. (All About Information Technology) In this project the hardware and software required as the application will be deployed on a apache server, PHP 5.3 With ZEND Framework and mysql 5 Server will not be big ask at present scene. On the Client End the application just requires any current java script enable web browser. 1.12.3. Operational Feasibility Study Operational feasibility study tests the operational scope of the software to be developed. The proposed software must have high operational feasibility. The usability will be high. It is basically used to analyse whether the system will be used if it is developed and implemented. Whether there will be resistance from users that will affect the possible application benefits? Data gathering methods such as questionnaire and interviews have been incorporated in the development plan to ensure all user requirements are collected well in hand to develop the system. We also provide help manual to better understand the tystem. 1.12.3. Schedule Feasibility Study Schedule Feasibility is an assessment whether the project will be able to complete on time. Since the project deadline is fixed i.e. 32 weeks. Each project phase time-line has been established with certain milestones also including some form of deliverables like PPF, PSF and Mid-Point the project-schedule is realistic and well within reach if the established schedule is followed precisely. 1.13. Major Project Deliverables Final Year Project Documentation Page | 18 Draft Proposal PPF Ethical Form PSF log sheet Hard copy Soft copy Final Year Project Documentation Page | 18 Start date: 27th July 2010 Duration: 31 Weeks End date: 20th March 2 Planning (total 18 days) Work Breakdown Structure Schedule and Time Estimation Critical Path Method Interviews Gantt Chart Project Proposal Form Weeks -2.5 3 Analysis (total 49 days) Identify project specifications Project Background Resources required Techniques to be learnt Goals and Objectives Determine System Functionalities Identify scope of research Project Specification Form Investigation ad Research Programming Human Computer Interaction Multimedia Design Principles User requirements Drifting Analysis User Profiling Domain analysis System analysis Risk analysis Weeks -7 4 System Design (Total 49 days) Tasks: Navigational Design Story Boarding Process Diagram Abstract Interface Design Screen layout Content Design Interactivity Design Functionality Design Midpoint Interview Weeks -7 5 Implementation (Total 28 days) Code generation Module Integration Weeks -4 6 Testing and Evaluation (Total 35days) Test Plans Unit Testing Integration Testing System Testing Critical Evaluation Weeks -5 7 Project Ending (Total 35days) Submission of the finished product Presentation Weeks -5 2. Problem Description When people are sick, they must make critical decisions about when and where they should receive healthcare. Unfortunately, most people lack the medical knowledge needed to make these decisions safely. Online Smart Diagnosis is powered by a computer program that performs symptom triage. The goal of symptom triage is to decide when, and where, you should seek care when you have symptoms. Symptom triage does not replace a physician evaluation or make a diagnosis. Over the past 12 years, healthcare professionals in the U.S. government and major managed care organizations have used the program extensively, proving its effectiveness. Like FreeMD.com improves medical outcomes by helping consumers determine the most appropriate time and place to receive care from a healthcare professional. (How it Works) With so many options for care today, its becoming more important for you to know where you should get care when you develop symptoms. Choices include: Emergency Room Urgent Care Center Physician Office Physician eVisit (via the web, e-mail, or phone) Dentist Office Nurse Retail Clinic Your choice on where to get care is important because not all of these locations are equipped to treat all health problems. If you make the wrong choice, you risk delaying your diagnosis and treatment. A wrong choice could also lead you to over-pay for the same care you could have received in a less expensive setting. Online Smart Diagnosis was created to safely direct you to the right location: where you get the care you need, without paying more than you need to. Online Smart Diagnosis performs a medical interview, just like a real doctor. During the interview, you answer questions about your symptoms and past medical history. Online Smart Diagnosis is designed to be fast (average encounter time is less than 2 minutes), so you get help fast! At the end of the process, FreeMD.com generates a report that provides the following information: What might be causing your symptoms? When should you see a doctor? Where should you seek care? What kind of doctor should you see? What should you do to care for yourself? There are many palaces in the world where you cant find a single doctor. There are only 54 doctors per 100,000 peoples in Africa. Presently, Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. In many parts of the world, far too many children and adults are dying unnecessarily from easily treatable diseases. In a world where many of us take basic healthcare for granted, one in six children in Zambia will still not reach the age of five. Too often this problem is simply due to the lack of access to effective primary healthcare. Whether it is the huge distances to health centres and lack of transport, the lack of doctors in many regions, or the simple shortage of resources such as medications, very often easily treatable conditions are left until it is too late. From above information we can say, there is a desperate lack of primary healthcare available to rural communities in many parts of the world due to their geographical isolation, shortage of doctors, and lack of resources. The Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases Project is an innovative new venture that aims to use mobile clinics and internet to save lives. 3. Literature Review Development of successful project starts with a solid and deep Research. Thus, Research will be an on-going process throughout the project. Researches need in every phase let it be planning, user interface designing or anything and especially when you are in process of building comprehensible website. The research area will also consist of the development process model which will be used for the project. Getting good hands on programming languages and mastering back-ends will also be a challenge and research work. For developing this project I am going to flow Web Engineering model. I think this is the best model to make web based project. 3.1. Web Engineering and WebE Process model: As Web-based systems play increasingly important roles in a number of applications, the demands placed on these systems and their complexity have also increased significantly. Also, there is growing need for improved quality, performance and availability of Web-based systems as we are now more dependent on Web-based systems than ever before. But, most Web-based systems are poorly developed in ad hoc manner and hence they exhibit poor performance and are susceptible for major failures. Web-based system development, in most cases, lacks rigour, systematic approach to design, disciplined development process and quality control and assurance procedures. Hence, there is growing concern about the performance, quality, integrity, maintainability and scalability of complex Web based systems. Web engineering advocates a process and a systematic approach to development of high quality Web-based systems and aims to bring the potential chaos in Web-based system development under control and enha nce scalability, maintainability and quality. It is a rapidly emerging as a new discipline for successful development and deployment of large Web-based systems in a range of applications. Web Engineering is an evolving development methodology dedicated to the development of superior Internet and Web Applications. It advocates a standardized process and follows a systematic approach. (S. Murugesan, Y. Deshpande, S. Hansen and A. Ginig, 1999) Web engineering principles and approaches can fix the issues related to web development methodology gaining complete control over the process, minimizing risk and improving the quality and maintainability (Ginige Murugesan, 2000) Web Engineering Activities Successful Web-based system development and deployment is a process, not just an event as currently perceived and practiced by many developers and academics. Web engineering is a holistic approach and deals with all aspects of web-based development, starting from concerting and development to implementation, performance evaluation, and continual maintenance. (Suh, 2005) (Suh, 2005) Web Engineering Development Process: Reasons behind choosing the WebE process model Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases :going to be a web based project and as developer have chosen web engineering model, it would be easy and profitable to follow the process model suggested under the web engineering. The WebE process model is deliberately developed for the web applications and it addresses the specific needs of a web application which differs from the traditional software and is not addressed by the traditional software methodologies, too. Developers system is a web based system and would have a feature that can be looked after only by a dedicated web process model and thats why I found WebE useful. Take time to understand the business needs and product objectives, even if WebApp details are vague. Describe how users will interact with the WebApp using a scenario-based approach Develop a brief project plan. Spend time modeling what you are going to build 3.2 Academic Research Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine is a project where research is going to be very crucial. I have contact with doctor for gathering information. Some of friends who are medical student are going to help in making the database. There are already some system are on the market. From this kind of system I can learn, how I can make this kind of system. Academic Research means extracting information from others hard earned experiences like going through books, journals, paper presentations and other published materials. My project has multidirectional requirements Medical Since this project deals with Medical, patient and so I will need to go through various Medical books so that at least I should have an idea how can I make a virtual medical agent. Patient I have to understand what a patient want from a doctor. What kind of patient should able to use this kind of system? Software Engineering Techniques Web engineering , Mobile WEB technologies Network and Internet Databases there will be a huge use and requirements for databases, since everything will be stored at backend. So I will need a secure, big database Reports generation Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases 1. Introduction 1.1. Present Scenario Internet is the latest and the most powerful innovation of mankind. In present era of internet we used computer technology to solve our many problems. Today in every field we use computer technology from education, business, social networking to order a dinner or health check-up. Nobody knows from when human are start using medicine for cure themselves from illness. Many years ago when uncivilized human are lives in cave, deep forest they used various tree, plants leaves as medicine. They give their knowledge to the next generation. There is no MBBS doctors are available at that time. The anytime anywhere availability of Internet has made a great impact specially in-terms of reaching customers and making themselves aware of ones products base and services. (Roche, 2010) Going back 15 or more years, when hardly anyone had access to the internet; you would have had to go out to find a doctor for solving your health problems. But now, that the internet is available to many people, so people can visit a virtual doctor clinic. In todays modern society we have MBBS doctors, thousands of medicine for thousands of diseases. If we feel sick, we go to the doctors clinic and doctor diagnosis us, then prescribed some medicine and after taking medicine will fine within few days. But if you went out from your city or you go someplace, where you get sick and you dont have any doctor nearby. What you do then? In Africa there is only 1 doctor among 5000 people. Presently, Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. There are many places where people are dying because of some common diseases. Just some common medicine can help them. Now if I asked you What if you could visit a doctor, any time of day or night, without leaving your home and that doctor could review your history, diagnose your problem and also give you prescription? Now you are thinking how is it possible? Ok you need just an internet connection and computer and Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases onlinesoftware will do it for you. 1.2. Topic of the Project The Project is titled â€Å"Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases†. It will be a generic software package for a medical clinic. The system will be able to act as a web-based solution for medical symptom checker. It will prove to be asset for both the doctor as well as their patient. 1.3. Targeted Audience Target audience or user is one of the main concerns on how and why a system is been developed, who is going to use this system. The target users of Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine have been categorized into three types. 1.4. Problem Context Internet enthusiastic people want to use internet to solve their medical problems. But there is no good local site that can provide this kind of facility. This kind of website is perfect for them who dont have time to visit a doctors clinic for minor Where doctor is unable, we used this kind of technology to help people. Presently, There are only 54 doctors per 100,000 peoples in Africa. Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. In this country this kind of system will help people if it can be implemented. . 1.5. Rationale behind the System The following has highlighted some of the most common benefits of the â€Å"Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine† Because of the existence of the identified problems, there is a need for such project. This project consists of some on-line web application which provides guides to the patient. The system will be using advanced algorithm to design a virtual medical agent. The benefits gained from this project are: User can contact with doctor easily from their home or office. Doctor can easily manage their patient. Patient can gain medical knowledge from using this system. Smart Symptom checker can help patient anytime. 1.5.1. Proposed Solution Ø Patient who have some knowledge of using internet doesnt need to visit to doctor for common diseases life fiver, Pain, stomatitis etc. Ø It also helps community and skilled health workers, supported by automated assessment and treatment protocols, can rapidly expand the delivery of health care in developing countries Ø The spread of mobile phones and web services makes new models of healthcare delivery possible at everyones hand. Ø Proven technology will allow developing countries to leapfrog the knowledge gap between doctors and patients Ø User can learn about healthcare tasks from this system. Ø Doctor doesnt need to remember all the name of medicine and their purpose. Doctor can find details of a medicine just a click of a search button. Ø Ground-breaking but proven technology allows rapid development, review, and updating of complex automated guidelines by medical professionals without it intervention. 1.6. Benefits of the System Development and Implementation of such a system will bring in a lot of benefits for the business, its employees and its customers (both current and potential). These benefits can be classified into Tangible and Intangible which are discussed in details below:- Ø The system help doctor to make faster diagnosis. Ø Using medicine search engine doctor can get any medicine information with in a second. Ø Various medical tools like BMI calculator, symptom checker etc. will help doctor as well as patient to solve their problems easily. Ø System administrator can easily manage the system using content management system. Ø The system will use roles and permission levels, to maintain confidentiality of private data of administrator, doctor and patient. Ø Patient can use chat services to chat with doctor. Ø The presence of certain services offered by the system on the mobile web will also ensure that the system can be accessed from anywhere anytime. 1.7. Challenges Involved Developing a system such as this will involve a host of challenges for the developer. The major challenges can be classified under:- 1.7.1. Domain Challenges: Ø Data Gathering and Domain Analysis: Due to the developers unfamiliarity with the work-flow and the processes followed in the online Symptom Checker it will become a challenging task to develop awareness about the medical service domain. Ø Implementation of Customizability: The biggest challenge of developing a system like this is its implementation itself. There is high percentage of risk involved in development and implementation of a system like this. The main challenge is to understand the base concepts involved in designing and developing Smart Medical Diagnosis. The developer will also need to follow a modular and object oriented approach in developing this system for enhancing reusability, abstraction, encapsulation and polymorphism. Ø Content Management System (CMS): Understanding and Implementing a CMS integrated with a system like this will require the developer to design the complex architecture of the system in prior so that his/her concepts are clear regarding the control flow of the system and no module infringes each other. This will also require him/her to study existing CMS such as Joomla and Drupal and understand their architecture and working. Ø Database Designing and Normalization: Designing a database for a generic customizable system like this is challenge in itself. The fields and data types of the table along with the tables itself are not fixed or pre-defined. The developer needs to code keeping in mind user customization may need to create these database objects dynamically and hence needs to keep a scope for their creation and modification. Apart from this, there needs to be a big centralized database, which is capable of storing large amount of data and about a large number of entities. The relation between these large numbers of entities will be needed to be figure out and a complex normalization has to be implemented in designing a database like this. Ø Implementation of 3-Tier Architecture: In order to enhance scalability, performance, reliability and robustness of this system, the developer will need to implement 3-Tier architecture for developing this system which is a challenging task keeping in mind the size and complexity of the systems database. Ø Algorithm for Customizing the site and Symptom Checker: The developer will require to showcase solid understanding for logics and algorithms in order to develop the module where the administrative users can add or edit new pages, new symptom option where he/she will be able to add its name description along with the algorithm that will be followed for generating a definite result. 1.7.2. Technical Challenges: PHP: The system will require the developer to use advanced PHP functionalities like Personalization, Forum, Blog and Emailing which will be used in various modules of this system. Develop a PHP base application is harder as compare to develop same application in ASP.NET using visual studio. Visual studio generates code for you debug for you and its also save time. But PHP is challenge as compare to asp.net. Cause PHP doesnt have any IDE and very code you need to write it down in a text editor. Finding an error is also a head ace. But for learning purpose PHP is great. Thats the reason I chose PHP as main web development language. Web Based system: Making an interactive web based system is difficult. Implement a dynamic web site is harder than making a desktop application. We need to take care of network, client server, band width to make project successful. AJAX and JavaScript / jQuery: For designing an intuitive and dynamic interface so that users have a rich experience availing features like data entry assistance, error prevention, etc. The developer needs to have in depth knowledge of AJAX as well as JavaScript or jQuery. Implementation of AJAX is not easy task for a developer who is new to web development. I just know little PHP and HTML. It will be a challenge for me to implement Ajax in this project. AJAX makes web application fell like a desktop application. CSS: Most people who are new in web development cant able to understand how to lay out a page. They just try to drug and drop div, table using Dreamweaver or any HTML design tools with underrating the advanced concept of CSS. And ended up with Advanced Database Concepts with MYSQL: For designing such a complex database that the system requires the developer needs to have a concrete understanding of database concepts like Normalization, Query Optimization, Views, and Permissions. He/she should also require familiarity with MYSQL. MOBILE OPTIMIZATING : For optimizing the web application for mobile phones and handheld devices the developer needs to have extensive skills in WML, mobile web as well as an understanding of how to integrate WML with server side scripting technologies 1.8. Goals behind developing the System 1.8.1. Project goal â€Å"When people are sick, they must make critical decisions about when and where they should receive healthcare. Unfortunately, most people lack the medical knowledge needed to make these decisions safely. Online smart diagnosis is powered by a computer program that performs symptom triage. The goal of symptom triage is to decide when, and where, you should seek care when you have symptoms. Symptom triage does not replace a physician evaluation or make a diagnosis.† 1.8.2. Academic Goal Ø To recall and analyse and implement the understanding and concepts learnt in the complete course curriculum through various modules as well as on individual level and implement all of it in order to come out with a complete computing project of industry standard Ø To document and publish the deliverables professionally following the standards followed in industry. 1.9. Objectives of the System 1.9.1. Project Objectives Ø To come up with a complete automation solution for online symptom diagnosis. Ø To keep the design, architecture, implementation flexible so as to allow customization by the system administrator. Ø Optimize information presentation and service interface according to the capability of the device requesting it. Ø To use communication channels apart from HTTP like Email, SMS and WAP for supplying quality information and services to customers and company employees. Ø To ensure that the web is bug free and that it runs equally and efficiently on all browsers and platforms 1.9.2. Academic Objectives Ø The prime objective is to learn nitty-gritties of project management and project development lifecycle, implementing it in developing the system and gaining experience in it. Ø Learn Content Management System (CMS) Ø To learn and apply the various Web Development Methodology and Human Computer Interaction Design Principles to the system design. Ø Web accessibility Ø To learn and master the advance features of PHP, MYSQL and associated technologies. Ø To learn the internal work-flow and procedures that is followed medical diagnosis. 1.10. Success Criteria To determine whether the project is a success or a failure parameters such as the quality of application developed as well as the quality of project documentation will be analysed. The quality of application will include the degree to which requirement was fulfilled, the degree of user-friendliness of the system as well as the ability to run swiftly, consistently and error-freely on multiple browsers. 1.11 Scope and Functionalities of the System Scope limits the project. It defines where in the project the developer should call it stop. It determines to what extent the system will support functionalities and beyond what the system facilitates no feature or functionalities. 1.11.1. Functionalities to be implemented The functionalities to be incorporated into the system which in turn will decide the scope of the system have been classified into 3 categories on the basis of their complexity and exclusiveness. They are:- 1.11.1.1. Core Functionalities:. Ø Symptom checker is an automatic smart software agent that can ask question to patient about their problem and it analysis the problems and diagnosis the debases of the patient Ø Chat Services Patients can text chat with doctor. Ø Forum User can create, post delete thread in forum Ø Messaging User can send message to each other Ø CMS(Content management System) Admin can create update and delete pages. Ø Medicine search engine Doctor can use medicine search engine to know about works of a particular medicine Ø Registration of Doctor And Patient . Ø Patient Can upload his/her medical history. Ø Secure and configurable user access through individual user logins and passwords. Ø Users can change their password. 1.11.1.2. Enhanced Functionalities: Ø Design the virtual doctor using artificial intelligent Ø Video chat service Ø Create user blog Ø Full Mobile based services Ø Full customizing user profiling. 1.11.1.3. Special Functionalities Ø Various tool boxes for doctor BMI Calculator, BRM calculator, Body fat calculator. Ø Voice chat and VoIP 1.11.2. Scope of the Project This projects main aim is to give perfect medical information to the user through internet. It will save time and money of both doctor and patient. The patient who dont have the time to visit the clinic of the doctor for some common issue they can use this system. This kind of system already in market like virtual doctor, WEB MD, Online health, but none of them works on mobile platform. As Smart Medical Diagnosis also works on mobile platform, anyone with wap enable mobile with GPRS, EGDE or 3G can access his web services and get information about medicine and diseases. 1.11.2.1 Scope Limitation Ø Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases is an online application. Without internet this system doesnt work Ø WAP Based mobile not able to display the webpage Ø chat required high speed internet connection Ø Symptom checker may be diagnosis wrong if patient give wrong input Ø Serious medical problems cant be solved using this system Ø Only some common diseases can be diagnosis 1.12. Feasibility Study By the means of feasibility study one can find out if an information system project can be done, and if so, how. A feasibility study should answers the following question: Ø Whether the project can be done; Ø What are alternative solutions? Ø What are the criteria for choosing among them? Ø Is there a preferred alternative? After a feasibility study, a decision is taken on the go ahead/no go of the project. There are a many types of feasibility study that are used for analysis of Information System. In this project the developer has restricted the feasibility study to Technological Feasibility Study and Schedule Feasibility. 1.12.1. Technical Feasibility Study The technical feasibility study compares the level of technology available in the software development firm and the level of technology required for the development of the product. Here the level of technology consists of the programming language, the hardware resources, Other software tools etc. (All About Information Technology) In this project the hardware and software required as the application will be deployed on a apache server, PHP 5.3 With ZEND Framework and mysql 5 Server will not be big ask at present scene. On the Client End the application just requires any current java script enable web browser. 1.12.3. Operational Feasibility Study Operational feasibility study tests the operational scope of the software to be developed. The proposed software must have high operational feasibility. The usability will be high. It is basically used to analyse whether the system will be used if it is developed and implemented. Whether there will be resistance from users that will affect the possible application benefits? Data gathering methods such as questionnaire and interviews have been incorporated in the development plan to ensure all user requirements are collected well in hand to develop the system. We also provide help manual to better understand the tystem. 1.12.3. Schedule Feasibility Study Schedule Feasibility is an assessment whether the project will be able to complete on time. Since the project deadline is fixed i.e. 32 weeks. Each project phase time-line has been established with certain milestones also including some form of deliverables like PPF, PSF and Mid-Point the project-schedule is realistic and well within reach if the established schedule is followed precisely. 1.13. Major Project Deliverables Final Year Project Documentation Page | 18 Draft Proposal PPF Ethical Form PSF log sheet Hard copy Soft copy Final Year Project Documentation Page | 18 Start date: 27th July 2010 Duration: 31 Weeks End date: 20th March 2 Planning (total 18 days) Work Breakdown Structure Schedule and Time Estimation Critical Path Method Interviews Gantt Chart Project Proposal Form Weeks -2.5 3 Analysis (total 49 days) Identify project specifications Project Background Resources required Techniques to be learnt Goals and Objectives Determine System Functionalities Identify scope of research Project Specification Form Investigation ad Research Programming Human Computer Interaction Multimedia Design Principles User requirements Drifting Analysis User Profiling Domain analysis System analysis Risk analysis Weeks -7 4 System Design (Total 49 days) Tasks: Navigational Design Story Boarding Process Diagram Abstract Interface Design Screen layout Content Design Interactivity Design Functionality Design Midpoint Interview Weeks -7 5 Implementation (Total 28 days) Code generation Module Integration Weeks -4 6 Testing and Evaluation (Total 35days) Test Plans Unit Testing Integration Testing System Testing Critical Evaluation Weeks -5 7 Project Ending (Total 35days) Submission of the finished product Presentation Weeks -5 2. Problem Description When people are sick, they must make critical decisions about when and where they should receive healthcare. Unfortunately, most people lack the medical knowledge needed to make these decisions safely. Online Smart Diagnosis is powered by a computer program that performs symptom triage. The goal of symptom triage is to decide when, and where, you should seek care when you have symptoms. Symptom triage does not replace a physician evaluation or make a diagnosis. Over the past 12 years, healthcare professionals in the U.S. government and major managed care organizations have used the program extensively, proving its effectiveness. Like FreeMD.com improves medical outcomes by helping consumers determine the most appropriate time and place to receive care from a healthcare professional. (How it Works) With so many options for care today, its becoming more important for you to know where you should get care when you develop symptoms. Choices include: Emergency Room Urgent Care Center Physician Office Physician eVisit (via the web, e-mail, or phone) Dentist Office Nurse Retail Clinic Your choice on where to get care is important because not all of these locations are equipped to treat all health problems. If you make the wrong choice, you risk delaying your diagnosis and treatment. A wrong choice could also lead you to over-pay for the same care you could have received in a less expensive setting. Online Smart Diagnosis was created to safely direct you to the right location: where you get the care you need, without paying more than you need to. Online Smart Diagnosis performs a medical interview, just like a real doctor. During the interview, you answer questions about your symptoms and past medical history. Online Smart Diagnosis is designed to be fast (average encounter time is less than 2 minutes), so you get help fast! At the end of the process, FreeMD.com generates a report that provides the following information: What might be causing your symptoms? When should you see a doctor? Where should you seek care? What kind of doctor should you see? What should you do to care for yourself? There are many palaces in the world where you cant find a single doctor. There are only 54 doctors per 100,000 peoples in Africa. Presently, Kenya has slightly more than 5,000 doctors. In many parts of the world, far too many children and adults are dying unnecessarily from easily treatable diseases. In a world where many of us take basic healthcare for granted, one in six children in Zambia will still not reach the age of five. Too often this problem is simply due to the lack of access to effective primary healthcare. Whether it is the huge distances to health centres and lack of transport, the lack of doctors in many regions, or the simple shortage of resources such as medications, very often easily treatable conditions are left until it is too late. From above information we can say, there is a desperate lack of primary healthcare available to rural communities in many parts of the world due to their geographical isolation, shortage of doctors, and lack of resources. The Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases Project is an innovative new venture that aims to use mobile clinics and internet to save lives. 3. Literature Review Development of successful project starts with a solid and deep Research. Thus, Research will be an on-going process throughout the project. Researches need in every phase let it be planning, user interface designing or anything and especially when you are in process of building comprehensible website. The research area will also consist of the development process model which will be used for the project. Getting good hands on programming languages and mastering back-ends will also be a challenge and research work. For developing this project I am going to flow Web Engineering model. I think this is the best model to make web based project. 3.1. Web Engineering and WebE Process model: As Web-based systems play increasingly important roles in a number of applications, the demands placed on these systems and their complexity have also increased significantly. Also, there is growing need for improved quality, performance and availability of Web-based systems as we are now more dependent on Web-based systems than ever before. But, most Web-based systems are poorly developed in ad hoc manner and hence they exhibit poor performance and are susceptible for major failures. Web-based system development, in most cases, lacks rigour, systematic approach to design, disciplined development process and quality control and assurance procedures. Hence, there is growing concern about the performance, quality, integrity, maintainability and scalability of complex Web based systems. Web engineering advocates a process and a systematic approach to development of high quality Web-based systems and aims to bring the potential chaos in Web-based system development under control and enha nce scalability, maintainability and quality. It is a rapidly emerging as a new discipline for successful development and deployment of large Web-based systems in a range of applications. Web Engineering is an evolving development methodology dedicated to the development of superior Internet and Web Applications. It advocates a standardized process and follows a systematic approach. (S. Murugesan, Y. Deshpande, S. Hansen and A. Ginig, 1999) Web engineering principles and approaches can fix the issues related to web development methodology gaining complete control over the process, minimizing risk and improving the quality and maintainability (Ginige Murugesan, 2000) Web Engineering Activities Successful Web-based system development and deployment is a process, not just an event as currently perceived and practiced by many developers and academics. Web engineering is a holistic approach and deals with all aspects of web-based development, starting from concerting and development to implementation, performance evaluation, and continual maintenance. (Suh, 2005) (Suh, 2005) Web Engineering Development Process: Reasons behind choosing the WebE process model Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases :going to be a web based project and as developer have chosen web engineering model, it would be easy and profitable to follow the process model suggested under the web engineering. The WebE process model is deliberately developed for the web applications and it addresses the specific needs of a web application which differs from the traditional software and is not addressed by the traditional software methodologies, too. Developers system is a web based system and would have a feature that can be looked after only by a dedicated web process model and thats why I found WebE useful. Take time to understand the business needs and product objectives, even if WebApp details are vague. Describe how users will interact with the WebApp using a scenario-based approach Develop a brief project plan. Spend time modeling what you are going to build 3.2 Academic Research Smart Medical Diagnosis for Common Diseases with Medicine Search Engine is a project where research is going to be very crucial. I have contact with doctor for gathering information. Some of friends who are medical student are going to help in making the database. There are already some system are on the market. From this kind of system I can learn, how I can make this kind of system. Academic Research means extracting information from others hard earned experiences like going through books, journals, paper presentations and other published materials. My project has multidirectional requirements Medical Since this project deals with Medical, patient and so I will need to go through various Medical books so that at least I should have an idea how can I make a virtual medical agent. Patient I have to understand what a patient want from a doctor. What kind of patient should able to use this kind of system? Software Engineering Techniques Web engineering , Mobile WEB technologies Network and Internet Databases there will be a huge use and requirements for databases, since everything will be stored at backend. So I will need a secure, big database Reports generation