Lovely Family Host is hosting interviews with customers around the globe to serve you how they have reached their goals while working together with Lovely Family Host.
This week, we would like to invite Dr. Nyein Chan Ko Ko, Founder of San Pyu and Medical Abidan to share his knowledge about working with a website and how he has made his way to combination of  medical sector and technology using a website hosted with Lovely Family Host.

Hello Dr. Nyein Chan, can you introduce yourself and road to development?
    I'm Dr.Nyein Chan Ko Ko. I completed my education from the University of Medicine, Mandalay. However, I'm working more with technology after completing my university. My current working path is to make a bridge between the medical and information technology. At this moment, we are developing many apps and platforms about health. In concern of the Health Sector, the first app we have developed is Myanmar First Aid which is about immediate assistance given to any person suffering from either illness or injury in Myanmar Language since 2014.
    The second development we made in the health sector was MyOPD in 2017. It is about listing outpatients departments and operating hours of these departments of public hospitals across Myanmar.
    The third one becomes a medical dictionary, named Say Abidan, which can get information about medical terms in English to Myanmar. It is now working with Android.
    The last one we have built so far is San Pyu which is about Standardized information about health. It has developed as both Webpage and Android Apps. We make digitization based on the work of the Ministry of Health, Myanmar about standardized health messages.

Your education path started on Medicine, how did you meet with technology?
    How can I say? I'm working on the technological part since long times ago. I have been trained mostly by working so I haven't been to any technical class or university. Since 2006, when I was in First Year Medical Student. There is no Facebook at that moment. I started blogging and worked on multiple small projects and gained experiences. Later, I can work on larger projects. My blogging experiences can help me when working on building websites. Along the way, I'm going with self-study and makes improvements.
 

Now can you say you are working on Technical Developments?
    Maybe. I'm working on joining both on medical and technology.
    In Myanmar, Is there any development of searching and finding information using technology in the health area?
    As far as I know, based on some forecast, only a few people are searching on google for health information. Currently, they are getting health information from their friends' shares and posts by some pages. They cannot still search the health information they want to find out. That behaviour is still emerging. I can say that the use of IT on health information is still very few when compared with other sectors, such as fintech or logistics. People are not used to with it.
 

Can we say that font diversion is a cause of those delays?
    Maybe it can, especially in earlier times. We can find very few information in the Burmese Language then we are not searching with Burmese anymore. Zawgyi-Unicode problem was a barrier for searchability. I hope Unicode problem was solved then people can find more information in Myanmar Language.

Can you describe how did you start your first app?
    I started my first app when my University life ended. At that time, I didn't want to be a physician. My parents recommended opening a GP yet I didn't want to. I wanted to do at that moment was to make a health app because there are very few apps in Myanmar Language and no health apps.
    When I was in House Training and medical departments, there are a lot of apps in English. We also have apps about how to manage the patient in an emergency. We only have apps in English then we should have apps also in Burmese. That pushes me forward.
    Before First-Aid App Idea came to my mind, I have got an idea of home remedies with household items. However, there is no reliable source of information about home remedies, especially about which product widely used for a specific disease. I'm afraid that half-truth information can become toxic to my users. First-Aid has precise information then I decided to focus on it.
    When developing the First-Aid app, I didn't get information from Red-Cross or MOHS. I have to start from scratch. I indexed fundamental items first. I also find sources which other peoples already developed. I found Dr.Tint Swe posts then I requested to reference them with permission to revise. I also add new updates. I also updated some contents, added relevant pictures and made according to guidelines. In the programming part, I didn't work with any programming language but working with tools which can end on an API. I worked on the project head to tail. My friend developed a logo. In version 1, the icons are not much beautiful because they are from everywhere. In version 2, My MD friend redesigned these icons from scratch. The latest version is from 2016 then we can still use it as reference.

Can you tell me about My OPD?
    In 2017 July, I met my MD friends outside. They say there are enormous waves of patients in each hospital. They came from a variety of cities, towns and villages. Many people mistook their days. OPD works on a specified time frame yet Emergency operates 24/7. When Other hospitals refer patients come to the hospital, the referring hospital does not know the operating hours of the recipient hospital. A specific MD may be available tomorrow or the day after tomorrow in a referral hospital. That makes the patients have to wait for two or more days. If they can, they will stay in a monastery, or wait outside of the OPD. This incident makes troubles to both OPDs and patients.
    We can solve this problem from some points. We collect information and store in a system then GPs can refer using that information. We collect them from hospitals and built a database. My friend developed an app. The backend database usually updated then users can get latest updates without redownloading the whole app. The main target is both doctors and hospitals who want to know correct working hours when referring the patient to specific hospitals. This project is continuous.
    So, We can see that MyOPD has high coverage across the social network.
    After MyOPD, the medical dictionary project started. I wanted to do this project since 2015. There were many dictionaries though no English to Burmese Medical Dictionary about medicines. I also want it for myself because I didn't want to find it in the whole book. There are many actors in the medical field, ranging from doctors to midwives and HA. They shouldn't have to proficient English to understand these medical terms. At least they can read and understand when these terms are in Burmese. Most people do not bring the whole dictionary with them besides install apps and bring together. We decided to start with mobile apps. We collected required information from a variety of sources, including many English to Burmese medical dictionaries, and read the proof and correct many mistakes. We built the database afterwards and the final product, the mobile app. The time-consuming work is maintaining the security of the backend.
 

The app is only as of the mobile version, or as chatbot?
    It released as both mobile and chatbot. However, we focus more on the mobile app. We have developed the chatbot, but dictionary chatbot not much prioritized. Chatbot's main priority is searching medicine information. The mobile app is to find medical terms and chatbot is to know more about the medicines. They are different.
    Later, many people use the chatbot to find medicines. They explore how and why the drugs should take by using the chatbot. It becomes a habit.
    The final one is San Pyu. At the end of 2017, the MOHS released the book named the standardized health messages. There were several common diseases across the nation and MOHS prioritize on these diseases. The ministry published a lot of pamphlets but nothing left. MOHS combined all information moreover published as a standardized book. There are multiple chapters and multiple titles in that book to be referenced by later people. That books include information about how the specific disease can happen and how to stay in shape. There are 13 chapters, including neonate and child care. How immunization works and how to consume foods, transmissible and non-transmissible diseases, caring of elderly and traditional medicines are also included.
    The book is in two formats as an e-book and as a real book. However, there is no information published on the internet. We have a habit of reading over the internet in the current. We are less convenient on reading the book or scrolling through PDF. We believed that a website or apps should exist to ease the process. It took some times as there are other projects in front. We scanned the book, converted into texts, read the proofs, uploaded to the website later released the mobile app. We started the app in late 2018 and completed in 2019. We invited volunteers for this project over Facebook and many joined, including doctors. Their main task is to read the proofs.
    When they completed proofreading, these texts did upload to our website. We arranged text and images. At the same way, my friend started working on the app. The app is simple with features such as Zawgyi-Unicode compatibility with speed startup. This process completed in late 2019.
 

Can it be green?
    With this process, we can save more trees. We can publish only 10,000 books and publish online instead of publishing 100,000 books. This process will indirectly contribute to the environment.
    This project can run on internet connectivity. Many people, including merchants and trishaw drivers, have phones today and they have internet. They can reach the websites via the internet, and reduce logistic costs such as maintaining and delivering books.
    The book publishing process is too long. We have to wait for a long time to get updated information via books. The information may be outdated when we work using books because this information is about two years old. New edition is on the way, but publishing on books will take time.
 

Can we say that people are more interested in searching for this information?
    First of all, we are weak in marketing. If we can corporate with MOHS, we can do more. The current process of MOHS to publish books and e-books and send it to the users' tablets or phones. If we can replace the progress flow, we can have a lot of users. Currently, we only have a small segment. Another thing is we are waiting for the second edition of Standardized Health messages. I hope many updates will come in the second edition.
    If we can corporate with MOHS, we can get the original copy then we can update faster.
 

Can you tell some difficulties with developing these apps?
    In MyOPD project, we collected much information from many hospitals. We found that there are different names for a similar department in each hospital. For example, a hospital has a department named "Say Ku Tha Saung" although other hospital named it "Phyar Nar Saung", also other hospital named it "Tha Mar Daw Kyi Shu Yan". There are lots of diversions plus some departments have more different names. Some departments named as "Ohn Hnaught Htar Na", "Ohn Hnaunght Hnit Arr Yone Gyaw" and more specific as "Ohn Hnaught Hnit Arr Yone Gyaw Khwel Seik" and "Ohn Hnaught Hnit Arr Yone Gyaw Ku Tha". Many name variations have arisen without standard names. These names are very confusing and problematic in the working project. We have to define new standard names because we cannot duplicate similar names across the app. We chose general words with high coverage for each sector in Myanmar as the English names are the same. For example, Medical Wards named"Phyar Nar Saung" in Myanmar. This work made users easy to search by category.
    The data updated per year, plus we found difficulties when updating these data. We sometimes lost contact to contact persons if they quit their jobs or transferred to another hospital. We added report function but mostly not reported, only readers.
    In medical Abidan, it has as large data as nearly 9,000 terms in the dictionary. We only have a few people then I prepared most terms myself. I checked spellings, definitions and duplicates and the workload increases by time.
    In San Pyu, we read pdf and convert text and upload on the website means lesser error. The hard part is on improving the website includes speeding up and make functional. We don't have a web developer makes us a challenge to build a website.

Can you say something about clean air? We say many things about noise pollution, river pollution and garbage pollution, but we found very few sounds on air pollution and UV rays.
    For example, when we talk about the weather in earlier times, we say about the weather by feeling on our skins. Now, we can say it by peeking our phones and reading temperatures. However, Air pollution and UV rays remain not visible, plus not monitored correctly. They are barriers to increase awareness.
    We do not know much about Air pollution until the last two years. Many people think much traffics causes air pollution. In the morning, we used to say there are fogs, but in later we know they are smokes, not fogs. The reason why we know is there are some air quality detectors now using in Yangon. Currently, twelve sensors are working in Yangon. Cheap and functional sensors are also available in private sectors. These sensors are not only for the local community or school but also the data from sensors become open data. Anybody can see open data from the phone and know what is happening in Yangon. We cannot access this information in the earlier two years. AQI platforms are released, and some people access, including journalists and media personnel. They started to write articles when they read and trust this information. Once a newspaper is published, another press referenced it and republished. Many newspapers publish that news then people start checking out with apps found right. Awareness become raised. Some pollution like air or food safety cannot be seen and measured to raise awareness.
 

    Let me bring you on a current issue. Can you say something about how China uses technology in Corona Virus Prevention and Treatment?
    We should say that not only China but also the whole war use technology to prevent and treat the virus. For example, China built a new hospital in 8 days by using new engineering technologies.
    Another thing is they found very fast on finding the cause of people dying. They found a new virus very fast than earlier times. Diagnosis results come out with speed. The particles on Virus DNA has assessed very quick. Sars took two to three months to get virus gnome, but Covid-19 took only two weeks. The main difference is they now use dashboards. Realtime dashboard for infected, recovered, and deceases are listed. Some are automated, and they do not have the manual operation.
    Some Artificial Intelligence can detect the outbreak. Blue Dot AI has detected about similar cases appeared inside China before the government officials made any announcements. AI gathered information sources from news, flight schedules to built a model and predicted a virus was outbreaking and infected to specific countries. They already send messages to the government but gain no trust.
Can we say that the usage of IT in the health sector?
    According to Covid-19, technology usage will be much better. Earlier information is scattered and not easy to gather. Now, the ministry has created a separate page to display about coronavirus and uses QR code. QR is in pamphlets, books, news and posters. We can get that page to get announcements, news, dashboard and reporting forms on one page by scanning QR code. That is the most convenient way to get information and report. We manually read the news and created a dashboard. If this information published in an excel form, the process will become faster to give updates to our report dashboard.

Let me ask back to our services, how did you know about our services?
    I knew Lovely Family for a long time also I saw you are working in Phandeeyar Coworking Space. Later, Ko Aung Win Htut (Kwee) told me that we could work with Lovely Family about websites. I was curious about his website (gamingkwee.com) when it launched.
Read More: Featured Interview with Gaming Kwee(https://www.lovelyfamilymm.com/blog/featured-interview-gaming-kwee)
    I ask kwee about where did he host his website. At first, he uses other hosting providers such as z.com although later he told me that he is hosting in Lovely Family Host. At first, I'm not a Shared Host user. Shared Hosting did not usually make me feel great. I used Godaddy and later to Digital Ocean. After times fly by, the sizes are growing and the costs too because each site is on each droplet. I have to find to save on my websites. I have got information from Kwee and other friends such as Ko Sett Khaing is using Lovely Family Host. I planned to meet with Lovely Family and start subscribing two websites. I found that hosting is convenient, and I started using the Lovely Family Host.
    Another thing is, in other providers, I cannot manage when the sites become large. Sometimes it leads to chaos. I can get more support when hosting with Lovely Family Host. More precisely, Great Service. My sites do not have much traffic and putting them together will make me more convenient.

How do you feel a difference before and after hosting with us?
    My domain is in Goddy, Hosting is in Digital Ocean, and SSLs are in Letsencrypt before migration. They spread out everywhere. Sometimes I don't know how I built them since I have less documentation earlier.
    I also want to use Gmail with my domain name, but I do not have success when I test it before. It is all solved with Lovely Family Host. I don't have to think about anything. In earlier times, my sites are not accessible when certificates are expired.
 

Can you suggest for improvements on Lovely Family Host?
    I think the main improvement should be not to rely entirely on support. The self-Service part is still less functional. The DIY resources are still low. I hope support request times will fall when self-Service becomes higher.

To reach Dr Nyein Chan Ko Ko
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/nyeinchankoko
MyOPD: https://bit.ly/myopd
Medical Abidan: https://bitl.y/medicalabidan
San Pyu: https://www.myanmarhealth.info
Website: https://www.drnyeinchan.com