Abstract—In most developing countries, although the vast majority of the people are living in the rural areas, the qualified medical doctors are not available there. Health care workers and paramedics, called village doctors, informal healthcare providers, are largely responsible for the rural medical care. Mishaps due to wrong diagnosis and inappropriate medication have been causing serious suffering that is preventable. While innovators have created many devices, the vast majority of these technologies do not find applications to address the needs and conditions in low-resource settings. The primary motive is to address the acute lack of affordable medical technologies for the poor people in low-resource settings. A low cost smart medical device that is portable, battery operated and can be used at any point of care has been developed to detect breathing rate, electrocardiogram (ECG) and arterial pulse rate to improve diagnosis and monitoring of patients and thus improve care and safety. This simple and easy to use smart medical device can be used, managed and maintained effectively and safely by any health worker with some training. In order to empower the health workers and village doctors, our device is being further developed to integrate with ICT tools like smart phones and connect to the medical experts wherever available, to manage the serious health problems. Keywords—Healthcare for low resources settings, health awareness education, improve patient care and safety, smart and affordable medical device. I. INTRODUCTION N most developing countries, qualified medical doctors are not available in the rural areas. Lack of pure drinking water, lack of proper sanitation system, air pollution, malnutrition, protein deficiency and food contamination are the primary causes of illnesses in the low resources settings. Lack of health awareness education, regular income, and proper life style management further deteriorates their health conditions. Rural health care facilities in the developing countries usually do not have qualified health staff and healthcare equipment to offer reliable healthcare access to those who need it most. Current health care delivery system needs an urgent improvement to make it accessible, affordable, equitable and safe as well as to make it fit-for future need. A more balanced workforce that is applicable to each country’s needs and conditions is required. Appropriate education, training and incentives should be focused on creating an efficient workforce that is centered on Mannan Mridha, Usama Gazay, Kosovare Valle Aslani and Hugo Linder are with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, KTH The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (e-mail: mannan@kth.se). Alice Ravizza and Carmelo De Maria are with the Research Center "E. Piaggio" - University of Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, 56122 Pisa, Italy. disease prevention as well as illness management, which will be able to function with coordinated action [1], [2]. There are severe shortages of healthcare workers in most developing countries. Africa has 2.3 healthcare workers per 1000 population, compared with the Americas. In low- resource settings, like rural India or Bangladesh, 70% of the country’s population lives in the rural areas, and they do not have adequate access to health care. Almost 76% of the country’s medical facilities are concentrated in the urban areas. In fact there is an overall shortage of medical personnel in the country. Medical devices are generally unavailable, underutilized or misused [3], [4] at the government health care facilities. This is largely due to shortages of biomedical engineers, clinical engineering facilities at the hospitals, and lack management and maintenance services along with the shortages of spare parts and proper education and training materials. By 2020, cardiovascular diseases are predicted to be the major causes of morbidity and mortality in most developing nations around the world [5]. Respiratory and pulmonary infections, influenza, heart diseases etc. pose major public health-related complications in Bangladesh with consequent high morbidity and mortality [4]. By enabling remote telemedicine diagnostics, the smartphone-powered devices can connect patients living in rural areas with cardiologists and other experts, and can enable physicians to make better decisions, leading to better outcomes [6], [7]. The main purpose of this work is to address the lack of reliable and affordable medical technologies in low-resource settings to monitor pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases that represent a leading cause of mortality and morbidity especially among the elder people and manage illness of the infants. It is also important to create an enabling environment to improve the rural health workers’ quality and performance through access to: a) reliable and cost effective medical devices for quality diagnosis, b) proper education and training to manage the related devices and ICT tools, c) reliable connectivity to the medical experts for consultation and treatment advice d) education to prevent and treat health problems which routinely afflict the rural people. II. DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT Innovative medical technologies offer more effective Development of Affordable and Reliable Diagnostic Tools to Record Vital Parameters for Improving Health Care in Low Resources Settings Mannan Mridha, Usama Gazay, Kosovare V. Aslani, Hugo Linder, Alice Ravizza, Carmelo de Maria I World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Medical and Health Sciences Vol:12, No:11, 2018 521 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 12(11) 2018 Digital Open Science Index, Medical and Health Sciences Vol:12, No:11, 2018 waset.org/Publication/10009765