Applying the ISO/IEEE 11073 Standards to Wearable Home Health Monitoring Systems

Abstract

The goal of this effort was to investigate the feasibility of applying the ISO/IEEE 11073 (a.k.a. X73) standards, originally intended for bedside monitoring in hospital environments, to wearable, multi-sensor monitoring systems designed for home healthcare. The X73 upper-layer sub-standards (i.e., nomenclature specification, domain information model, application profiles, and vital sign device descriptions) were adopted and implemented on microcontroller-based sensor hardware to provide plug-and-play medical components. Three types of system elements (base stations, data loggers, and sensor units) perform the functionality required in this standards-based home health monitoring system and communicate using Bluetooth wireless modules. The base station incorporates a LabVIEW interface running on a personal computer. Each data logger and sensor unit is implemented on a microcontroller-driven embedded platform. Sensor units include wearable sensors (e.g., electrocardiograph, pulse oximeter) and nearby sensors (e.g., weight scale, ambient environment sensors). The standards-based prototype system with an open architecture achieves plug-and-play performance suitable for a home environment. Each wireless element in the body/home area network can automatically detect other nearby devices, associate with them, and exchange data with them as appropriate. With minor modifications, the X73 standards can be successfully applied to wearable, wireless, point-of-care systems in the home.