[DMP 2024]: Offline capability with cross-device communication

[drtechie]

Ticket Contents

Description

Digital Bharat Collaborative (DBC) is an initiative of Piramal Swasthya, the healthcare arm of the Piramal Foundation. DBC's focus areas include building a robust digital public health delivery platform, improving data-driven governance and empowering healthcare workers. Piramal Swasthya is contributing with its experience and expertise in building innovative solutions that impact at scale. Piramal Swasthya is focused on bridging the public healthcare gaps by supplementing and complementing the Government of India's vision to meet Universal Health Coverage. Piramal Swasthya is operational in 21 States in India through 35 innovative public healthcare delivery programs and has served more than 112 million beneficiaries so far.

Health and Wellness Centre (HWC) Mobile Application is developed by DBC to meet all Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) services as per the guidelines of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Health and Wellness Centres are aimed to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care, that includes preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative care, with a focus on wellness and the delivery of an expanded range of services closer to the community.

What is currently available feature: HWC Mobile App currently has the feature of offline and online capability concerning a single device, that is within a single device data stores locally (data entry of entire workflow) and synced to AMRIT server when there is a network availability.

What is not available and needed feature: Many HWCs are located in places with poor to nil network coverage. When a beneficiary visits such a centre, the data must be transferred across devices of various actors like registrar, nurse, doctor and pharmacist. In this kind of environment, data should transfer from device to device. Finally, data must be synced to the Accessible Medical Records via Integrated Technologies (AMRIT) central server from preferred devices when there is network availability.

Goals & Mid-Point Milestone

Goals

• [ ] Discover, explore and identify the technology and process that can exchange data between mobile devices without the internet in a closed offline environment
• [ ] Within the environment establish communication between the selected devices (use technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.)
• [ ] Establish connections between devices in a fully offline peer-to-peer manner and transfer data from one device to another.
• [ ] Create the ability to share photos or files during offline
• [ ] Integrate sync of data between user roles and devices
• [ ] [Goals Achieved By Mid-point Milestone are above]
• [ ] Handle use cases of different online and offline scenarios
• [ ] Sync data to the central server from preferred devices when there is a network availability

Setup/Installation

https://github.com/PSMRI/HWC-Mobile-App

Expected Outcome

• Within the Health Facility establish communication between the selected devices and exchange data between user mobile devices without internet
• Finally, sync data to the central server from preferred devices (user endpoint to sync data) when there is network availability
• Mark the status of records synced and not synced

Acceptance Criteria

• Data exchange should be cross-device in a real-time manner without the internet when devices are in proximity.
• Data transfers should be secure and with fully encrypted data
• The Data Sync process must be serialized, that is to follow the order of the syncing process
• Maintain flags for offline and online records
• The solution should work offline and online

Implementation Details

Potential tech that can be used: https://developers.google.com/nearby/connections/overview

The offline data Sync process has below 2 Workflows:

• For Sub centre-HWC (SC-HWC) User: CHO
• For PHC Users: Registrar/ Nurse/ Doctor/Lab Technician/Pharmacist

In SC-HWC, CHO can work offline or online, in case of offline when there is network availability records/data start syncing to the central AMRIT server automatically. The syncing process must be serialized, this is the order of the syncing process:

Patient Demographic records >> Visit & Vitals records >> Prescription & Case records >> Lab results/Reports records >> Pharmacy dispensed records

There are two syncing processes:

• Up sync: syncing offline records from Mobile devices to the AMRIT server
• Down sync: updates/updated records from AMRIT server syncing back to respective Mobile device

Offline Functionality in SC-HWC:

In SC-HWC workflows, CHO User has mapped to all roles (Registrar, Nurse, Doctor, Lab Technician and Pharmacist). It is the single/same mobile device and data will sync to the central AMRIT server in a serialized process.

Offline Functionality in PHC-HWC:

Whereas in PHC-HWC Workflows, each of the users is mapped to single or multiple Roles (example: Staff Nurse can be mapped to 3 Roles - Registrar, Nurse, Doctor and Pharmacist or single Role only Nurse) Therefore, in PHC-HWC Workflow in the offline environment, records/data should flow between these users (devices): Registrar (DEO) >> Nurse >> Doctor >> Lab Technician and Pharmacist in this serialized process In the syncing process, every record should maintain sync status, should be flagged as offline and online

Process Flow Diagram

From the below process flow diagram, consider the workflow process at the PHC – HWC to satisfy the use case of data exchange between Mobile devices of PHC staff in real-time without the internet.

Signs	Specifications
Red Arrow	This represents the Offline flow of data
Blue Arrow	This Shows the Up-Sync of data when the user enters the network area
Purple Dotted Arrow	This Shows the Down-Sync of data from the "AMRIT" server

Mockups/Wireframes

NA

Product Name

AMRIT Mobile

Organisation Name

Piramal Swasthya Management Research Institute

Domain

⁠Healthcare

Tech Skills Needed

Material-UI, RESTful APIs, Other

Mentor(s)

@drtechie

Category

Database, Mobile

[shambhabya]

Hello @drtechie , I am interested to work in this project, but i have knowledge of MERN stack, and creating API's in Node. So I wanted to know, if I get a chance to work on this project, in which language and frameworks will we be working on?

[drtechie]

Hi @shambhabya this project as you can is developed in Kotlin. Our APIs are developed using Java and Spring boot. The core work is to be done in mobile application (Kotlin)

[Ritik-in-Tech]

Hello @drtechie , I am interested to work on this project I have earlier also worked with mobile development in java and kotlin. So please guide me how I have to start and if possible please take a short meet so that I understood your requirements.

[Ritik-in-Tech]

@drtechie I have setup the projects and it runs on the physical device smoothly. Please give me some small issues which I can start working so that get familiar with the flow.

[AbhimanyuSamagra]

Do not ask process related questions about how to apply and who to contact in the above ticket. The only questions allowed are about technical aspects of the project itself. If you want help with the process, you can refer instructions listed on Unstop and any further queries can be taken up on our Discord channel titled DMP queries. Here's a Video Tutorial on how to submit a proposal for a project.

[vivekmishra9631]

Hi @drtechie , I'm Vivek Mishra, a third-year NIT Karnataka student with a strong passion for building impactful web applications. I'm excited to express my interest in this project!

My background includes:

Full-Stack Development Experience: I honed my skills as a full-stack developer intern at aiRender for 6 months, working with JavaScript, ReactJS, Redux, Material UI and WebRTC. This experience solidified my understanding of both front-end and back-end development.

MERN Stack Expertise: In addition to my internship, I'm also a proficient MERN stack developer, comfortable working with MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js. This versatility allows me to tackle projects with both front-end and back-end components.

My problem-solving skills are further bolstered by my achievement of a gold medal at Worldquants Brain, demonstrating my ability to think critically and find efficient solutions.

I believe my technical skills, combined with my enthusiasm for building meaningful projects, make me a strong candidate to contribute to the Uli project. I'm eager to learn more about the specific requirements and how my expertise can be utilized.

[Thejas775]

@drtechie Please check your discord dm from thejas5387. Thanks

[drtechie]

Weekly Goals

Week 1

• [x] Create a POC for sending data between devices using Nearby API

Week 2

• [x] When offline, advertise the device with a unique name
• [x] Create a share button and UI for displaying advertised devices

Week 3

• [x] Send beneficiary data via Nearby API to the advertised device - handle one scenario of Registrar to Nurse sync
• [x] Ensure the advertised device accepts and inserts the beneficiary data
• [x] Show indication on the sender's device that the receiver has successfully accepted the data.

Week 4

• [x] Handle scenarios for sending data for Nurse and Doctor

Week 5

• [x] Handle scenarios for sending data for Lab Technician and Pharmacist

Week 6

• [x] Up-sync of data from the end-point role

Week 7

• [x] Handle cases of offline/online mix

Week 8

• [x] Review complete user flow and polishing of UI-UX

[Ritik-in-Tech]

@drtechie who is selected for this project?

[Anksssssss]

Weekly Learnings & Updates

Week 1

• Learned the basics of the Google Nearby API, set up the development environment in Kotlin, and configured permissions.
• Successfully created a proof of concept (POC) for sending data between two devices using Nearby API.

Week 2

• Implemented offline advertising using a unique device name and designed UI elements in Kotlin for displaying advertised devices.
• Successfully created a share button and UI to display advertised devices.

Week 3

• Developed the data transfer mechanism using Nearby API to send and receive data between devices.
• Worked extensively with Room database, managing multiple tables to retrieve and organize data for transfer.
• Implemented error-handling mechanisms for data transfer failures and ensured data integrity during the process.
• Successfully sent beneficiary data from Registrar to Nurse, received the data on the Nurse’s device, and saved it to the correct tables in the Room database.
• Added an indication on the sender's device upon successful data acceptance and insertion on the receiver’s device.

Week 4

• Implemented the logic for handling data synchronization between Nurse and Doctor using the Nearby API, focusing on different types of data such as patient information and visit data.
• Developed the mechanism for sending data from Nurse to Doctor with progress tracking and success feedback, including error handling for data transfer failures.
• Integrated the handling of incoming data on the receiver's side, ensuring correct insertion into the local database, while managing potential issues like null or unknown data types.
• Provided real-time feedback through the user interface, showing the progress of data transfer and notifying users of successful or failed operations.

Week 5

• Planned the approach for handling the offline data sync between Doctor and Pharmacist, noting the differences from the online flow.
• Designed a schema for a new local database to store medicine stock details for a particular Health and Wellness Center (HWC).

Week 6

• Made an API call to fetch medicine stock data for a specific HWC
• Created the local database using Room based on the schema.
• Populated the local database with the fetched medicine data, enabling offline access for pharmacists.

Week 7

• Enabled sending data from Doctor to Pharmacist using the Nearby API, similar to the Nurse-to-Doctor data flow.
• Implemented functionality to store offline medicine prescription data received from the Doctor in the local database.

Week 8

• Updated the local database to reflect medicine dispensing activities, ensuring accurate record-keeping for offline use.
• Used WorkManager to handle API calls for updating the server when network connectivity is restored, ensuring synchronization of medicine dispensing details and stock quantities.

Week 9

• Used flags (e.g., synced, syncing, not synced, shared_offline) to track the status of data synchronization.
• Added the necessary code to handle patient data updates for the Registrar and Nurse roles that were shared offline.

Week 10

• Addressed the dependency between Doctor and Pharmacist in the offline sync flow, ensuring that the Pharmacist can only sync medicine updates after the Doctor's data has been successfully synced to the server.
• Used WorkManager to periodically retry (at 10-minute intervals) checking if the Doctor's data has been synced to the server, and once detected, sync the Pharmacist's data accordingly.

Week 11

• Conducted extensive testing of the offline-first approach, focusing on local data transfer, medicine stock management, and synchronization with the server.
• Refined WorkManager logic for handling complex offline/online scenarios and ensuring accurate data syncing between Doctor and Pharmacist roles.

Week 12

• Enhanced background data syncing for Doctor and Pharmacist roles, ensuring seamless data synchronization when network connectivity is restored.