Design of a Telemedicine Application for Rural Health Delivery in Taraba State

Patients in rural communities of Taraba State face long distances and high transport costs to access specialist healthcare, creating preventable health deterioration from delayed diagnosis and treatment. This study presents the design and prototype implementation of a telemedicine application for rural health delivery in Taraba State, North East Nigeria. The application was built using Android Studio with a Firebase Realtime Database backend, supporting video consultations, symptom-based triage questionnaires, and electronic prescription transmission between rural community health workers and specialist doctors in Jalingo. Push notifications were implemented to alert doctors of pending consultations. The prototype was tested across simulated 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi network conditions. Video call quality was assessed using the Mean Opinion Score protocol, yielding scores of 3.2 on 3G, 3.8 on 4G, and 4.4 on Wi-Fi, all within acceptable ranges. A usability evaluation was conducted with 20 community health workers and 10 doctors over a two-week period. System Usability Scale results averaged 71.5, classified as acceptable. Common complaints included intermittent connection issues on 3G networks in remote areas. The study recommends integration of offline data caching to support asynchronous consultations during low-connectivity periods, and calls on Taraba State Ministry of Health to partner with telecom operators to improve rural network coverage as a complementary intervention.

Keywords: telemedicine, rural healthcare, Taraba State, mobile health, North East Nigeria