Date of Award
Summer 2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
First Advisor
Ahamed, Sheikh I.
Second Advisor
Madiraju, Praveen
Third Advisor
Tamma, Chandana
Abstract
With the proliferation of mobile technologies, there is a significant increase of research using mobile devices in the medical and public health area. Mobile technology has improved the efficiency of healthcare delivery effectively. Mobile Health or mHealth is an interdisciplinary research area which has been active for more than a decade. Much research has been conducted and many software research tools (mHealth Support System) have been developed. Despite the time length, there is a significant gap in the mHealth research area regarding software research tools. Individual research groups are developing their own software research tool though there is a significant similarity among them. Most of the research tools are study or disease specific. Some of the tools are device specific (desktop/laptop, mobile phone, and tablet) and some are platform specific (web, android, iOS, and windows). This costs each research study their precious time, money, and workforce to develop similar service or software research tools. Based on the mHealth research characteristics, it is possible to design and implement a customizable generic software research tool. In this thesis, we have proposed, designed, and implemented a customizable generic mHealth software research tool. It has most of the common software research modules that are needed for an mHealth research study. These include real-time data collection, research participant management, research staff management, role based access control, research data anonymization, customizable surveys, report generation, study forum, and activity tracking. This software research tool is responsive and HIPAA compliant which makes it device independent, privacy-aware, and security-aware.