Remote Patient monitoring and Response System

Project Title

Remote Patient monitoring and Response System

Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject Summary

Keeping track of the health level of the patient at homes, hospitals and remote areas is vital for quality healthcare.  Especially, senior citizens and patient with chronic diseases such as heart problem requires round the clock monitoring, prediction of the patient condition and timely first aid. The real time monitoring of the health parameters is useful for diagnosis and medication plan for the patient.

       In this project, we propose a smart solution, which monitors patent parameters and shares with the health providers and care takers. The proposed puts forward a smart patient health tracking system that uses sensors to track patient health and uses internet cloud to share with their care takers and the health providers.  Our solution monitors blood pressure, temperature, oxygen level and heart rate as measures of patient health. The sensors are wirelessly connected to the server, which is raspberry pi, an embedded development kit.

        The microprocessor fetches data from wireless sensors and uploads it to the cloud or database from where it can be accessed by the application compatible to it. The sensors are Bluetooth based devices that are made compatible to the microprocessor. The fetched data must be processed in real time fashion. We set conditions on the data fetched through the sensors, so that whenever the readings exceed from the specified limit, it should give an alarm signal to the control end.

        An IOT application has four stages.

• Data collection: Data is collected from the sensor using protocol of the any mode of communication i.e. Bluetooth, ZigBee or Wi-Fi.
• Data processing: The collected data is processed and transformed into a meaningful form.
• Data storage: The processed data is stored in the database.
• Data transfer: The stored data can be transferred to a client device using an MQTT protocol.

An app can be designed which is used by clients to access the data.

Project Objectives

The objective of the project is to provide smart healthcare solution which will be used to monitor the health and well-being of patients from any location. Investigate and develop an architectural prototype for healthcare system which enables services such as patient monitoring and interaction between healthcare providers and the patients in a wireless environment.

Physiological data such as blood pressure, heart rate and subjective patient data are collected by sensors on peripheral devices. Examples of peripheral devices are: the data is transmitted to healthcare providers or third parties via wireless telecommunication devices. The data are evaluated for potential problems by a healthcare professional or via a clinical decision support algorithm, and patient, caregivers, and health providers are immediately alerted if a problem is detected.

It will give the concept of how the smart devices are connected to the internet for communication. It will also give the concept about the technical details of the use of Bluetooth Wi-Fi or Zigbee and through knowledge about the storage of data in a database. The designing of app in android and communication of different devices by use of different protocols through internet are the key objectives of the project. Patients’ potential level of independence, remote data collection, remote monitoring, developing a wireless solution of infrastructure, reduction of the per capita cost of health care, improving the health of population, displaying the final results on web or android, are also the key objects of this project.

Project Implementation Method

This is system designed in two parts. Hardware and software; the hardware unit consists of multiple sensors connected to a patient, the processing unit and the software unit includes, software languages like Python, C, and their interfaces.

A remote application's simple operation stages are: A. Collecting the data, B. Processing the data, C. Storage the data and D. Transfer the data. Each app may have the processing of first and last steps, but storage does not apply or apply to certain applications.

In this system, the sensors inside a smart watch have been connected with the patient’s skin and the other end has been connected with The Raspberry pi board using Bluetooth as a communicating protocol. The smart watch have blood pressure and heart rate sensors and also have built in Bluetooth. The raspberry pi also supports Bluetooth and through coding we can connect it with smart watch. After successful connection of smart watch with raspberry pi, the raspberry pi can collect data wirelessly from smart watch sensors and can store it in the form of a cvs file. After collection of data ,processing of data can be done, i.e. in this system if the heart rate or blood pressure of a patient increases from certain threshold value it will become an alert as per desired. After processing of data, the data can be saved in local data base or cloud based data base MySQL etc. The data can be then transmitted wirelessly to any other device using MQTT protocol. Mosquito is lightweight and is suitable for use on all devices from low power single board computers to full servers. The MQTT protocol provides a lightweight method of carrying out messaging using a publish/subscribe model. This makes it suitable for Internet of Things messaging such as with low power sensors or mobile devices such as phones, embedded computers or microcontrollers. After collecting and processing of data, it can also be sent on the broker of mosquito, so from there any interested and registered subscriber can get the data.   In mobile devices the data can be received via an app designed using Android studio.

Benefits of the Project

It provides benefits to the patients in the remote areas, senior citizens, people having mobility issues and people having chronic diseases.

The local hospitals or health care centers can share the information or health conditions of their patients with the doctors, health providers and in big hospitals, reducing the workload and a clinical productivity solution. Also the condition of the patient can be evaluated by more health providers from the remote locations. So, it balances out the workload and time; no need for rounds to check the patients. In this way, it saves time and resources also this is cost effective and saves the lead time of travel.

Not only there is better access to care, patients also enjoy a better and smart quality of care. They can connect immediately and directly with their health providers, enjoy less waiting times and no tension of getting stuck in traffic or the emergency room. With the use of IOT and remote monitoring in chronic disease management can significantly improve a person's quality of life. It is because of this the chronically ill people can spend more time at home with their families rather than at hospitals.

The most important feature of IOT and remote monitoring is that it allows the patients to take control of their healthcare. It is because the use of the system is very easy, even a simple app can display all the received data on a mobile phone. Most remote patient monitoring modules come complete with user-friendly interfaces that can be installed on a tablet or smartphone for quick access. It enables them to be more involved in the decision-making process and empowers them to make decisions regarding their own healthcare. They are also less tense regarding the resulting costs of healthcare.

Since IOT and remote patient monitoring system critically document every step of the treatment and recovery process, it also makes billing more reliable. Instead of resisting caregiver recommendations, patients gain a better understanding of why and how decisions about their own health are made. This means that patients are more likely to embrace these decisions, and improve their own health in the process.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

A health monitoring system consists of several sensors connected to a patient and they communicate the data through the processing unit. In the project, Raspberry Pi is used as a data aggregator and a processor. The smartphone or computer of patient and doctor is used as a monitoring system.

Wireless sensors such as smart watch, temperature sensor, oxygen level sensor etc. will be used for the data sensing. The sensors are generally Wi-Fi or Bluetooth supported. The sensors will be attached with the patients and their current data can be sensed and read at the control end. 

A smart phone is required on which the application (app) will be implemented so that the request to the client can be made and the current data can be fetched to access it timely. The app is designed in the fashion that it will cover all the areas including the home page, the request options, the data slots, distinct columns for each disease (B.P, Temp., etc.)

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Health Technologies Internet of Things (IoT)Sustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for PeopleRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	34000
Raspberry Pi	Equipment	2	9000	18000
Wireless Sensor	Equipment	4	4000	16000