A Healthcare Digital Technology System for Non-Communicable Disease Surveillance

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to investigate the context and fundamental factors affecting the health of the ethnic minority elderly in the upper northern region of Thailand, 2) to develop a healthcare digital technology system for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) surveillance of the ethnic minority elderly in the study areas, and 3) to transmit knowledge about nutrition and the digital technology for non-communicable diseases surveillance. In this study, the preliminary data were gathered from a group of public health officers and the stakeholders, including provincial health officers, sub-district administration organization officers, municipal administration organization officers, teachers, monks, community leaders, and village health volunteers. The purposive sampling method was applied to select the sample group for this case study, which included Karen, Hmong and Lawa elderly residents. Moreover, the System Development Lifecycle was used to develop the digital technology to transfer nutrition knowledge.
A seminar was conducted for knowledge transference, and a questionnaire was administered to explore the satisfaction with the application of the healthcare digital technology system. The descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data for mean and standard deviation.

The research results revealed that the overall satisfaction with the system quality was at a high level with the mean of 4.05 and the standard deviation of 0.75. It was furthermore revealed that the quality of the healthcare digital technology system was appropriate for implementation.