NEC Corporation (Thailand) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chiang Mai Municipality to develop smart city solutions and transform Chiang Mai into a smart city, starting with a digital platform for the district's healthcare system.

The system will support healthcare facilities in Chiang Mai that are housing the elderly and chronically-ill patients. The MoU will also explore the feasibility of utilising other applications within the community under the "Smart Hospital" theme.

As the appointed technology partner in the collaboration with Chiang Mai Municipality, NEC and participating healthcare providers will deploy IoT devices in the facilities in the collaboration for the first phase. They will also deploy an app that will notify caregivers and patients' relatives in case of emergencies, such as a fall or when a patient feels extremely unwell.

In the second phase, NEC will further support caregivers with an application that allows for remote health monitoring through cloud-based systems. The application will also allow patients to manage their appointments and medication requests. This will have a huge improvement in reducing the workload of healthcare assistants.

Lastly, NEC will also support Chiang Mai Municipality in facilitating Tele-Medicine services by allowing patients to receive diagnoses and consultations on mild illnesses or follow-up treatments with doctors from the comforts of their home.