Body temperature measurement for remote health monitoring system

Abstract

Remote health monitoring system has been an interesting topic recently among medical practitioners, engineers as well as IT professionals. However, the application of remote health monitoring system where doctor's can monitor patients' vital signs via web is practically new in Malaysia and other countries. Remote health monitoring system is beneficial to the patients and society where the implementation of such system will save hospital bill, waiting time and reduce traffics in the hospital. The objective of this project is to design and develop body temperature measurement device that can be observe by the doctor in real time as well as history data via internet with an alarm/indication in case of abnormalities. In the proposed health monitoring system, heart rate and body temperature wireless sensors were developed, however this paper only focus on body temperature wireless monitoring system. The temperature sensors will send the readings to a microcontroller using Xbee wireless communication. To send the real-time data to health monitoring database, wireless local area network (WLAN) has been used. Arduino with Ethernet shield based on IEEE 802.11 standard has been used for this purpose. Test results from a group of voluntary shows the real-time temperature reading successfully monitored locally (at home) and remotely (at doctor's computer) and the readings are comparable to commercial thermometer.