Software:Healthcare worker at home (HCW@home)

From HandWiki
HCW@home
Original author(s)iabsis SARL
Initial release24 February 2022; 2 years ago (2022-02-24)
Stable release
5.0
Written inHTML, JavaScript
Operating systemLinux, Windows, macOS
Available inEnglish, French, German
TypeVendor Neutral Archive
LicenseGPLv3

HCW@Home is a web based and open source Telehealth platform initially developped to provide video call between an Health professional and his Patient. HCW@Home is built on top of an open source WebRTC Gateway stack called Mediasoup[1], ensuring nothing relies on external or closed services. The solution focuses on privacy, performance and simplicity. It covers two main use cases, the first where the patient is invited by a healthcare worker, a second where the consultation is requested by an external medical staff like nurse or generalists.

Features

HCW@Home use WebSocket to get offer instant notifications to users. HCW@Home is composed of various frontend in addition of a backend and media server api[2]. Various kind of authentication is supported, the embedded with 2FA SMS, OpenID and SAML.

Sensitive data exposure is minimized by automatically purging such information after a 24-hour period. Additionally, it revokes access tokens for both patients and third-party entities after consultation ends.

HCW@Home can be configured for a wide range of healthcare scenarios, including external clinician consultation requests, queuing for specific healthcare services, and direct patient invitations. It facilitates video and audio calls, initiated with patient consent, and offers a comprehensive messaging system for the exchange of text messages and attachments, enhancing the tele-consultation process.

Healthcare workers can invite patients using email or SMS. Once in the consultation, the consultation dashboard offers real-time visibility of a patient's online status and access to information shared during consultation. HCW@home can interconnected using Open API and after the consultation, pdf reports can be exported.

Supported languages

There is a translation interface for users to translate directly into a new language. Currently, the languages supported are Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Tamil and Tigrinya[3].

History

HCW@Home is based on HUG@home originated with a series of Hackathons organized by the Geneva University Hospitals (French: Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, HUG) aimed at enhancing patient care pathways within the healthcare network. The project's foundations were laid during the second HUG hackathon in December 2017[4], where it received both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience's Favorite Award, and further developed in the third hackathon in April 2018[5] through real-world testing of teleconsultation services.

The funding of the Fondation privée des HUG to HUG@home, led to the creation of a Proof of Concept (POC) named HUG@Home in 2019[6], developed in partnership with Iabsis SARL and involving the Geneva state home care institution (IMAD). The initial purpose of HUG@Home was to facilitate remote consultations by IMAD nurses when attending to patients at home, particularly following surgery.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the application was rapidly expanded to support a wider range of remote health services to prevent unnecessary hospital visits. This expansion was critical in responding to the pandemic, extending the application's use to the Geneva Doctor's Association (AMGe) and enabling remote consultations by a broad network of city doctors.

Post-pandemic, the Geneva University Hospitals decided to make HUG@Home available in open source to allow broader usage of its software under GPLv3 license. In order to better align HUG@Home's technological stack with the HUG's internal tools, they decided to move away from the first project and to start a new version of HUG@home.


After rewriting and cleaning up HUG specific code, a new fork was created under the name Healthcare worker at home (HCW@home) and the code has been published on Github[7]. This new version was designed to be more suitable for international contexts, moving beyond the local focus of the original project. These new changes facilitated its adoption by various organizations beyond Geneva, making HCW@home a Digital public goods[8] for healthcare delivery.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "mediasoup" (in en). https://mediasoup.org/. 
  2. ↑ "Concept - HCW@Home documentation". https://hcw-home.github.io/hcw-docs/deploy/. 
  3. ↑ Čihař, Michal. "HCW@Home/hcw-athome-patient" (in en). https://translate.iabsis.com/projects/hcwhome/hcw-athome-patient/. 
  4. ↑ "Hackathon #2 - Centre de l'innovation à Genève aux HUG - HUG" (in fr). https://www.hug.ch/centre-innovation/hackathon-2. 
  5. ↑ "Hackathon #3 à Genève aux HUG - HUG" (in fr). https://www.hug.ch/centre-innovation/hackathon-3. 
  6. ↑ "HUG@home, projet pilote, application de télémédecine des HUG - HUG" (in fr). https://www.hug.ch/medecine-premier-recours/hughome. 
  7. ↑ "Health Care Worker" (in en). https://github.com/HCW-home. 
  8. ↑ "HCW@Home - DPGA Details". https://app.digitalpublicgoods.net/a/11127. 

External links


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