Klai Mue Moh
Released late last year, the mobile application Klai Mue Moh (Doctor Near You) has been downloaded by more than 90,000 users. It serves as a virtual clinic, where people can be diagnosed at their fingertips. This is a collaboration between the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and Dr Adunchai Thammasangsert, a committee member of the Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons of Thailand.
To implement basic health screening, this app has accumulated more than 120 symptoms of diseases in 11 categories ranging from internal medicine to surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics, orthopaedics, dentistry, physical therapy, dermatology, psychiatry, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology.
The novel coronavirus is the latest addition to the list. The app has provided medical information to indicate signs of illness, with video clips and creative graphic designs educating people how to prevent virus infections.
In 2015, Dr Adunchai joined hands with more than 30 doctors specialising in different fields such as orthopaedics, obstetrics and ophthalmology to create the SOS Specialist page on Facebook, where people can confer about health problems for free.
Designed for people of all ages, new mums often chat to ask for tips on how to feed and take care of a newborn baby, while others seek a treatment course to ease office syndrome and people in their 40s get concerned about abnormal hormone levels.
“Now, the SOS Specialist page has more than 160,000 health-conscious followers. It became a large database of medical history that I used to develop the application DiagMe two years ago before it recently reincarnated in an easier-to-use version of Klai Mue Moh,” Dr Adunchai said.
“General users can check their symptoms and well-trained medical volunteers can use it to help diagnose a variety of diseases while operating a mobile clinic in remote areas. Featuring a cartoon character, users can tap on such organ-like icons as heart, knee or lung to see the disease directory or search for symptoms.”
To reduce the risk of infections, Dr Adunchai is developing an invisible warning feature so that his application can alert users to keep away from those showing symptoms of Covid-19.
“Now, those who are required to self-quarantine need to download a mobile app and authorities can monitor where they are in real time. So, I want to create an invisible warning programme that can be linked with authorities. Our app users will get an SMS to indicate the locations of suspected cases who break the rules and get out of their accomodation,” Dr Adunchai said. “This is a way to make people safe and the country has no need to lock down. People should get back to normal life without fear so businesses can move on.”
Klai Mue Moh is available on Apple Store and Google Play.