Google this week launched a project in collaboration with the World Health Organization to provide technical support to software developers in low- and middle-income countries that want to create digital health applications.

The tech giant is developing an open source software development kit that can be used to create mobile applications to help frontline medical staff treat patients when the Internet connection is unstable and share health data more easily. Blog post A Google Health product manager and Android software engineer issued a statement on Wednesday.

The kit is designed to help developers create applications on the Android mobile operating system, provide decision support tools for medical staff, and integrate patient data (usually distributed in multiple different applications).

The software development kit includes application components such as data access and search tools so that developers can more easily build digital health applications. In the case of unreliable connections, Android applications built with this kit will be able to run offline by storing and processing data locally.

“This [software developer kit] Reduce the time and effort required to build [Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources]Interoperable digital health applications based on Android maximize the efforts of local developers and unleash their potential to meet the needs of the community,” the blog post wrote.

Google plans to release a software development kit in the next few months.

WHO is already using the software development kit to develop a clinical decision support application, which medical staff will use in emergency situations. The app, called EmCare, provides evidence-based recommendations to medical staff treating patients based on existing WHO guidelines.

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According to data from Modern Healthcare, clinical decision support is a considerable area of ??interest in the healthcare sector, and companies selling such tools have raised US$1.5 billion in venture capital in the first nine months of 2021. Digital Health Business and Technology.

Google’s software development kit will use the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (better known as FHIR) format, which is a popular data sharing standard.FHIR used by international developers is a data sharing format Mandatory in supporting rules The Office of the National Health Information Technology Coordinator of the Ministry of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services released last year.

As long as all applications use FHIR, standardized data based on FHIR makes it easier to share information across applications.

According to the blog post, patient data stored in applications built using software development kits is encrypted and will not be shared with Google.

In recent months, Google has been trying to prove that it did not give up healthcare when it disbanded its Google Health department Distribute items throughout the company. Last week Google announced Doctors who have applied for a Google business profile will be able to specify which health insurance they accept and the language used in their office so that people can see this information when searching for doctors on Google.