Title :
Changing communications within hospital and home health care
Author :
Torrado-Carvajal, A. ; Rodriguez-Sanchez, M.C. ; Rodriguez-Moreno, A. ; Borromeo, S. ; Garro-Gomez, C. ; Hernandez-Tamames, J.A. ; Luaces, M.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron., Rey Juan Carlos Univ., Madrid, Spain
fDate :
Aug. 28 2012-Sept. 1 2012
Abstract :
Over the last decade, new hospitals are integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in their facilities. Although e-health is a relatively recent term for healthcare practice supported by electronic processes, ubiquitous healthcare monitoring, also known as m-health, is already an emerging research area. Patient monitoring in diverse environments, such as nursing homes or assisted living, are gaining importance. Traditional methods present some problems, as they don´t allow enough patient mobility. In this situation, real time transmission of multiple medical data, wearable computing, wireless access in ubiquitous systems and wearable devices for pervasive healthcare can meet the needs of these environments. However, the software and infrastructure deployed in hospitals is not easy to migrate to wireless systems. In some cases, the migration to new technologies can be costly. This paper focuses on the design of a modular, scalable and economical framework to improve the monitoring and checking of patients in different contexts. The challenge is to produce a system to transmit the patient´s biomedical data directly to a hospital for monitoring or diagnosis using new communication modules. The modular designed adopted is intended to provide a future-proofed system, whose functionality may be upgraded by modifying the hardware or software. The modules have been validated in different contexts to prove their versatility.
Keywords :
biomedical communication; health care; medical information systems; mobile radio; patient monitoring; ubiquitous computing; wearable computers; ICT; assisted living; communication module; e-health; electronic process; healthcare practice; home health care; hospital; information and communication technology; m-health; mobile device; nursing home; patient biomedical data; patient checking; patient mobility; patient monitoring; pervasive healthcare; real time medical data transmission; ubiquitous healthcare monitoring; ubiquitous system; wearable computing; wearable device; wireless access; wireless system; Bluetooth; Hospitals; IEEE 802.11 Standards; Mobile communication; Monitoring; Wireless communication; Communication; Home Care Services; Hospitals; Humans; Monitoring, Physiologic; Radio Waves;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Diego, CA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-4119-8
Electronic_ISBN :
1557-170X
DOI :
10.1109/EMBC.2012.6347379