Pervasive, secure access to a hierarchical sensor-based healthcare monitoring architecture in wireless heterogeneous networks

• Published in: IEEE journal on selected areas in communications Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 400 - 411
• Main Authors: Huang, Y.M., Hsieh, M.Y., Chao, H.C., Hung, S.H., Park, J.H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2009; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: ad hoc; Architecture; Biomedical monitoring; Communication system security; Data communication; Data transmission; ECG; Fabrics; Health care; Healthcare monitoring; Medical; Medical services; Monitoring; Networks; Patient monitoring; Patients; security; Senior citizens; Sensor systems; Sensors; wearable sensor; Wearable sensors; Wireless sensor networks; WSN
• ISSN: 0733-8716; 1558-0008
• DOI: 10.1109/JSAC.2009.090505

This study presents a healthcare monitoring architecture coupled with wearable sensor systems and an environmental sensor network for monitoring elderly or chronic patients in their residence. The wearable sensor system, built into a fabric belt, consists of various medical sensors that collect a timely set of physiological health indicators transmitted via low energy wireless communication to mobile computing devices. Three application scenarios are implemented using the proposed network architecture. The group-based data collection and data transmission using the ad hoc mode promote outpatient healthcare services for only one medical staff member assigned to a set of patients. Adaptive security issues for data transmission are performed based on different wireless capabilities. This study also presents a monitoring application prototype for capturing sensor data from wireless sensor nodes. The implemented schemes were verified as performing efficiently and rapidly in the proposed network architecture.