Mobile-healthcare application on the Cardiovascular Health Awareness Program

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases represent the leading cause of stays in long-term services (such as hospital), it is the leading cause of death in Canada, and is associated with a number of other diseases. The Cardiovascular Health Awareness Program (CHAP) has been shown to be an effective intervention in terms of primary care services, reducing emergency room (ER) visits due to cardiovascular diseases by 9%. The purpose of this study is to harness the potential of assistive technology to promote active and healthy adults with chronic conditions in specific areas defined by CHAP. Specifically, this project aims to design and develop a system to manage cardiovascular diseases using protocols defined by CHAP. We created a C-CHAMP IPhone/IPad application for CHAP using MYSQL servers. We also used XCode6 to unify interface design, coding, testing, and debugging into a single workflow. The application was designed to serve a number of functions related to CHAP protocols, including saving each new blood pressure reading for participants in local database, collecting information about the Risk Factors, and measuring body mass index. The system was first tested in the university’s lab, and then we made a survey for users, health professionals, and CHAP working groups in order to evaluate the usability, reliability, and functionality of the app.