Distributed Predictive Health Monitoring

Abstract

According to the National Center for Health Statistics the major causes of death in the US are (per year) heart diseases with 654 thousand cases, followed by cancer with 550 thousand cases and stroke with 150 thousand cases. In this project we propose, design, implement and test a prototype of a system that promises to improve the level of detection and prediction of several diseases and improves the quality of life of patients by utilizing non-invasive wireless medical sensors. This system is composed of a set of wireless medical sensors, a nearby (close-proximity) PDA (personal digital accessory) or cell phone used for data gathering and short-term analysis, and a large server used as a data repository and longer-term analysis and visualization center. Medical sensors are used to monitor cardiac function (ECG), as well as other medical conditions, while the "local" device (for example a cell phone) collects sensor information, does a preliminary analysis (looking for simple anomalies) and collects and sends information to a larger server. The server looks for larger (days or months) trends, detecting unusual conditions as well as creating visual displays of the patient's data.