Design Considerations for a Disaster eHealth Appliance

Abstract

Disaster eHealth is a new area of research and endeavour. In order to make a practical contribution Disaster eHealth approaches should consider the role of a Disaster eHealth appliance. Both disaster management and disaster medicine may find that such approaches allow critical information to be gathered and situational awareness improved. This paper proposes the development of a Disaster eHealth appliance to support self-care of chronic disease and caregiving by others. Injuries and disease caused by the disaster may be also supported by this approach. It also attempts to address some of the potential problems and suggest some solutions for the use of such appliances. Re-using existing devices may offer a relatively low-cost and sustainable approach to providing such devices, and infrastructure to use them.