Design and development of a u-Health system based on the ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD standards

An increase in human life expectancy due to the development of medical techniques has led to many social problems such as rapidly aging populations in many industrialized countries, increased medical expenses and a lack of medical specialists. Thus, studies on improving the quality of life with the least amount of expense have been conducted by incorporating advanced technology, especially for PHDs (Personal Health Device), into the medical service market. Recently, the Continua Alliance, IEEE Standards Association, and the IEEE-EMBS affiliated 11073 Personal Health Data Working Group have been studying techniques to guarantee the compatible extensibility of the u-Health system by defining standards, which manage and send information from the users of PHDs. However, compatibility and extensibility among manufacturers of PHDs have not been taken into account in most of the studies done on the development of PHDs because most of them have been supported by individual medical organizations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to design and develop a u-Health system for smart phones with the ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD standards, which were able to provide medical services anytime and anywhere.