Nowadays, chronic heart failure (CHF) affects an ever-growing segment of population, and it is among the major causes of hospitalization for elderly citizens. The actual out-of-hospital treatment model, based on periodic visits, has a low capability to detect signs of destabilization and leads to a high re-hospitalization rate. To this aim, in this paper, a complete and integrated Information and Communication Technology system is described enabling the CHF patients to daily collect vital signs at home and automatically send them to the Hospital Information System, allowing the physicians to monitor their patients at distance and take timely actions in case of necessity. A minimum set of vital parameters has been identified, consisting of electrocardiogram, SpO2, blood pressure, and weight, measured through a pool of wireless, non-invasive biomedical sensors. A multi-channel front-end IC for cardiac sensor interfacing has been also developed. Sensor data acquisition and signal processing are in charge of an additional device, the home gateway. All signals are processed upon acquisition in order to assert if both punctual values and extracted trends lay in a safety zone established by thresholds. Per-patient personalized thresholds, required measurements and transmission policy are allowed. As proved by first medical tests, the proposed telemedicine platform represents a valid support to early detect the alterations in vital signs that precede the acute syndromes, allowing early home interventions thus reducing the number of subsequent hospitalizations
This paper presents a telemedicine hardware/software platform for data acquisition, communication, processing, presentation and storage, aimed to remotely monitor lifestyle, vital signs and in general the clinical status of patients affected by chronic diseases. Such platform is useful to support an innovative ICT-based application of the Chronic Care Model (CCM). The platform exploits wearable sensors, a BT/BLE connectivity to the local gateway and then a connection, using standard formats and cyber-secure protocols, to a server-based application and repository. The platform allows clinicians and practitioners to realize aggravations and act promptly, before they become irreversible and lead to hospitalization. The system also implements data analysis, by processing multiple parameters in parallel. As well as monitoring the state of health, the proposed telemedicine platform can be also used to monitor the emotional and psychological state of the patient.
This paper presents a new remote healthcare model, which, exploiting wireless biomedical sensors, an embedded local unit (gateway) for sensor data acquisition-processing-communication, and a remote e-Health service center, can be scaled in different telemedicine scenarios. The aim is avoiding hospitalization cost and long waiting lists for patients affected by chronic illness who need continuous and long-term monitoring of some vital parameters. In the "1:1" scenario, the patient has a set of biomedical sensors and a gateway to exchange data and healthcare protocols with the remote service center. In the "1:N" scenario the use of gateway and sensors is managed by a professional caregiver, e.g., assigned by the Public Health System to a number N of different patients. In the "point of care" scenario the patient, instead of being hospitalized, can take the needed measurements at a specific health corner, which is then connected to the remote e-Health center. A mix of commercially available sensors and new custom-designed ones is presented. The new custom-designed sensors range from a single-lead electrocardiograph for easy measurements taken by the patients at their home, to a multi-channel biomedical integrated circuit for acquisition of multi-channel bio signals, to a new motion sensor for patient posture estimation and fall detection. Experimental trials in real-world telemedicine applications assess the proposed system in terms of easy usability from patients, specialist and family doctors, and caregivers, in terms of scalability in different scenarios, and in terms of suitability for implementation of needed care plans.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.