An integrated remote monitoring platform towards Telehealth and Telecare services interoperability

Abstract

Software platforms focused on the healthcare monitoring sector have recently attained a great penetration in the ICT market and they certainly constitute a key contributor to the improvement of the elderly people’s quality of life and the reduction of healthcare costs. It is of great importance that the platform allows for the simultaneous health, mental and psychological status evaluation of an elderly person. However, the integration of vital signs monitoring (Telehealth) with behavioral analysis based on home care sensors (Telecare) has not yet been established at a large scale. We describe the design and implementation of such platform that enables the deployment of services to follow-up the patient’s health status based on a set of monitored parameters per disease and to profile user’s habits and diagnose deviations from their usual activities. A key aspect of the platform is its Service Oriented Architecture middleware that collects data from heterogeneous Telecare and Telehealth gateways and provides the upper service layers with a unified and standards compliant message. In this way, an integrated view of Telehealth and Telecare data and alerts is made possible into a backend Web Portal where clinicians and operators have access to.