Remote Patient Monitoring System

The goal of the project is to design a generic remote health care system with a focus on antenatal care. This system can enable expert doctors to monitor patients in remote areas of Pakistan. As a result, the patients no longer need to travel long distances to reach to the nearest basic health units and then just be examined by a mere GP. Our aim is to use advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to develop a monitoring system that could enhance the quality of health care provided by the lady health workers. Presently, the antenatal care is being provided by little-educated lady health visitors who perform all the steps of patient care manually. They take readings of patient's physiological data using instruments which are difficult to handle and require manual tuning etc. Then, they record this data into printed forms manually. Finally, the collected forms are sent to a doctor who goes through all of them looking for any symptom of abnormality. The doctor then takes decision regarding the patient's treatment.

 We propose to develop an automated system that will replace all this hectic activity. The proposed system will be able to gather this physiological data, transmit it, record it, find any abnormality and then assist the doctor in the decision making process.

System Architecture

The basic model consists of a data gathering module, a PDA, a remote server providing Clinical Decision Support System and electronic medical record keeping, and any web-enabled remote terminal (e.g. doctor's laptop) which could be used to access services provided by the web-server.

The working of this basic model is as follows. The lady health worker is required to attach the data gathering module to the patient's body using wearable straps etc. provided with the module. The module (consisting of medical sensors) will record the patient's data and forward it to the PDA through a wired channel (e.g. USB or serial port). The PDA will contain an application for local monitoring of patient's data that would display the current readings. When all the readings have been taken, the PDA will connect to a remote server and transfer the data to it. The remote server will process the data, invoke the Clinical Decision Support System to perform analysis of data, invoke the Electronic Medical Record service to record the readings in the patient's history and provide feedback to the PDA screen notifying the decision given by the Clinical Decision Support System.

                                                                  Basic System Architecture 

The Basic System Architecture This model is realized by using intelligent wearable medical sensors controlled by a data gathering module. The sensor nodes are attached to the bodies of the patient and provide medical information to the data gathering module's processor. The data gathering module is connected to the PDA through USB or serial port. The PDA is carried by the lady health visitor. It collects and forwards the data observed at sensors attached to the patient's body to the main server typically located at a tertiary health care center. The communication between PDA and the main server is done through TCP/IP, GPRS or SMS/MMS (whichever is available in the area or the least costly in case of multiple services availability).

This model is realized by using intelligent wearable medical sensors controlled by a data gathering module. The sensor nodes are attached to the bodies of the patient and provide medical information to the data gathering module's processor. The data gathering module is connected to the PDA through USB or serial port. The PDA is carried by the lady health visitor. It collects and forwards the data observed at sensors attached to the patient's body to the main server typically located at a tertiary health care center. The communication between PDA and the main server is done through TCP/IP, GPRS or SMS/MMS (whichever is available in the area or the least costly in case of multiple services availability).