Research challenges in computation, communication, and context awareness for ubiquitous healthcare

A new paradigm for ubiquitous healthcare characterized by pervasive continuous vital sign data collection, real-time processing of monitored data to derive meaningful physiological parameters, and context-aware data- and patient-centric decision making, is central to deliver personalized healthcare solutions to the elderly and the physically challenged. However, this new paradigm requires real-time processing of wirelessly collected vital signs using inherently complex physiological models and analysis of the processed information under context (e.g., location, ambient conditions, current physical activity) to extract knowledge about the health condition of patients. As the computational capabilities of biomedical sensor nodes are insufficient to run these models, this article presents an innovative resource provisioning framework that organizes and harnesses the computing capabilities of under-utilized electronic devices in the vicinity (e.g., laptops, tablets, PDAs, DVRs, medical terminals) in home and hospital settings. Novel wireless communication solutions for reliable vital sign transmission and algorithms for acquiring context awareness to support this framework are also discussed.