Framework of sensor-based monitoring for pervasive patient care

What is it about?

Sensor-based health systems can often become difficult to use, extend and sustain. We propose a framework for designing sensor-based health monitoring systems aiming to provide extensible and usable monitoring services in the scope of pervasive patient care. Our approach relies on a distributed system for monitoring the patient health status anytime-anywhere and detecting potential health complications, for which healthcare professionals and patients are notified accordingly. Portable or wearable sensing devices measure the patient’s physiological parameters, a smart mobile device collects and analyses the sensor data, a Medical Center (MC) system receives notifications on the detected health condition, and a Health Professional Platform (HPP) is used by formal caregivers in order to review the patient condition and configure monitoring schemas. A Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is utilized to provide extensible functional components and interoperable interactions among the diversified system components. The framework was applied within the REMOTE Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) project in which a prototype system was developed, utilizing Bluetooth to communicate with the sensors and Web services for data exchange. A scenario of using the REMOTE system and preliminary usability results show the applicability, usefulness and virtue of our approach.

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Why is it important?

Our findings show that sensor-based health monitoring systems, if designed properly, can be functional, extensible and useful for both patients and health care professionals.

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