Opportunities for a Cloud Based Health Analytics as a Service for Eastern Cape Initiation Schools in South Africa

Abstract

Traditional male circumcision in the contemporary South Africa has become the focus of the government and media due to the large number of initiates severely injured or dying during the initiation period, which happens twice a year. Deaths and penile amputations are a feature of every circumcision season, as a result of sepsis, gangrene and dehydration amongst other diseases. This paper proposes a Cloud based Health Analytics as a Service for Eastern Cape initiation schools in South Africa to assist in saving lives and preserving the customs. The proposed Artemis platform will assist in acquiring physiological data of initiates before and during initiation to provide early insights of many conditions that can develop during initiation. Big data analytics based on Clinical Decision Support System such as Artemis provides real-time online analytics with knowledge extraction component that supports data mining and enables clinical research of various conditions. Conversely, Artemis has challenges for lower resource settings, which will be explored in this paper.

Big data analytics applied to health services: a literature review

“…Publishing at the Proceedings -IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems, Mcgregor and Majola, (2019) approached traditional male circumcision and how health analytics with a cloud-based service may help save lives and preserve customs. The authors proposed a platform that aids in the collection of physiological data, supporting real-time decision-making and providing information about conditions that may develop during the process.…”