Secure Automated Patient Monitoring System

Abstract

ABSTRACT newlineThe rapidly increasing aging population not only causes long hospital waiting time and expensive hospital stays, but also increases the workload of doctors and medical practitioners. Managing the cost and quality of treatment and caring for seniors is a key pressing issue in both developed and developing countries. This global phenomenon has stimulated a drastic demand for electronic healthcare (e-healthcare). It is a relatively recent term for healthcare practice supported by electronic processes and communication. In particular, patient monitoring in out-of-hospital conditions enables continuous monitoring of the patient, with less medical expenses and enabling elders independent at their own homes. newlineWireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have been increased in recent years because of the wireless communication technologies and advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems. It consists of group of biomedical sensors that are fitted to the patient s body to collect different body parameters like body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, and heart related parameters. These sensors acquire the body parameters continuously and store them in a local database, which is located at patient s home. The stored body parameters are transmitted to the remote server, which is located in the hospital. Doctors and medical practitioners are able to monitor their patient s conditions, detect any abnormalities and take appropriate action. newlineCurrently, some wireless patient monitoring systems have been designed which commonly use a Personal Computer (PC) as a local database in the patient s home. In such systems, the vital signals are transmitted from the local database to the hospital via the internet or mobile networks. The main drawbacks of these systems are the costs of a PC, accessibility, and possible delay that occur in sending data if the PC is currently off and the difficulty of using PCs for elderly people. newlineIn some of the in-home patient monitoring systems, patient wears a monitoring device to collect their movemen