🗺️ TENeT: Telehealth Effectiveness and Necessity Tracker

Identifying where telehealth can make the biggest impact in Alaska

🎯 The Problem

Alaska faces unique healthcare challenges:

• 663,300 square miles - Larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined
• 733,391 residents - Scattered across vast distances
• Many communities lack nearby medical facilities
• Variable internet connectivity across regions
• Weather conditions can prevent travel for months

💡 What TENeT Does

TENeT combines two critical datasets to answer: "Where is telehealth both NEEDED and FEASIBLE?"

Data Integration:

1. Healthcare Desert Identification

   • Distance to nearest clinic/hospital
   • Specialist availability
   • Transportation access
   • Number of facilities per capita

2. Internet Infrastructure Assessment

   • Connection speeds (upload/download)
   • Reliability and latency
   • ISP coverage
   • Cost and accessibility

Output:

• Interactive map of Alaska
• Color-coded regions showing telehealth priority areas
• Data-driven insights for policymakers and healthcare providers
• Searchable database of healthcare facilities and internet metrics

🏗️ Project Status

🚧 Phase: Initial Development
📅 Timeline: Alaska GSoC 2026 Project
👥 Team: Seeking contributors!
📊 Progress: Setting up foundation

🛠️ Technology Stack

• Backend: Python 3.8+, Flask
• Data Processing: Pandas, NumPy, GeoPandas
• Mapping: Folium (OpenStreetMap), Leaflet
• Database: SQLite (dev), PostgreSQL (prod)
• APIs: REST with Flask
• Frontend: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
• Testing: pytest, unittest

📊 Data Sources

Healthcare Facilities

Source	Data	Coverage
HealthSites.io	Global health facility database	Alaska subset
Medicare.gov	CMS certified facilities	All US, Alaska focus
Alaska DHSS	State health department data	Alaska only
Alaska Primary Care Assoc	Community health centers	Alaska only

Internet Performance

Source	Data	Updates
FCC Broadband Map	Coverage, speed, ISP data	Quarterly
M-Lab	Real-world speed tests	Real-time
Ookla Open Data	Speedtest results	Quarterly
broadbandmapping.com	Infrastructure maps	Monthly

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or higher
• pip (Python package manager)
• Git
• (Optional) Virtual environment tool

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/KathiraveluLab/TENeT.git
cd TENeT

# Create virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Set up configuration
cp config.example.py config.py
# Edit config.py with your settings

# Initialize database
python init_db.py

# Run development server
python run.py

Access the application at: http://localhost:5000

📂 Project Structure

TENeT/ ├── src/ │ ├── data/ # Data collection modules │ │ ├── healthcare_collector.py │ │ ├── internet_collector.py │ │ └── processor.py │ ├── maps/ # Visualization components │ │ ├── map_generator.py │ │ └── styles.py │ ├── api/ # Flask REST API │ │ ├── app.py │ │ └── routes.py │ ├── models/ # Database models │ │ ├── facility.py │ │ └── internet_metric.py │ └── utils/ # Helper functions │ ├── geo_utils.py │ └── validators.py ├── tests/ # Unit and integration tests ├── docs/ # Documentation ├── data/ # Cached data files ├── static/ # Frontend assets ├── templates/ # HTML templates ├── requirements.txt # Python dependencies ├── config.py # Configuration └── run.py # Entry point

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Areas needing help:

High Priority:

• Data collection implementation
• Healthcare desert calculation algorithm
• Map visualization with Folium
• API endpoint development

Medium Priority:

• Frontend UI/UX improvements
• Test coverage
• Documentation
• Performance optimization

See: CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines

Getting Started as a Contributor

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📖 Documentation

• Installation Guide
• Architecture Overview
• Data Sources
• API Documentation
• Contributing Guidelines

👥 Team

Mentors:

• Dr. Pradeeban Kathiravelu - pkathiravelu@alaska.edu
• Dr. David Moxley - dpmoxley@alaska.edu

Contributors:

• [Your name could be here!]

🔗 Links

• Discussion Forum
• Alaska GSoC
• Issue Tracker

📄 License

MIT License (or specify actual license)

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Alaska GSoC Initiative
• University of Alaska Anchorage
• University of Alaska Fairbanks
• Alaska Developer Alliance
• Healthcare.gov for facility data
• FCC for broadband mapping data

📬 Contact

For questions or discussions:

• Open an issue
• Join our discussion forum
• Email: pkathiravelu@alaska.edu

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Built with ❤️ for Alaska's rural communities

Helping bring healthcare to those who need it most