Development of the Remote Heart Health Monitoring System

Abstract

Introduction. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common cause of death worldwide. This problem is especially relevant for Ukraine, where CVD accounts for more than 68% of all deaths. At the same time, in terms of population mortality rate (15.3 ‰), Ukraine is ahead of all European countries. Electrocardiography is the most useful diagnostic tools. Nowadays a lot of portable ECG devices are available on the market, which makes ECG accessible for each patient directly from home. Remote monitoring of patients with CVD is a very necessary solution, which can save patient’s lives, doctor’s time and hospital’s money. Existing remote monitoring solution doesn’t provide enough cyber security and scalability, especially in the context of tight regulation of medical software in the European Union. The purpose of the article is to develop a cloud-based software solution for remote monitoring of patients with CVD using a portable ECG device. We propose the full architecture, which include server-side components (databases, computational resources, gateways, queus, load balancers and others) and client-side components (mobile app for the Android and iOS and web browser app). Results. We proposed, designed, implemented and tested the full end-to-end Cloud-based solution for remote monitoring of patients with CVD. Security of the system is ensured by dividing the single database to three separate databases (database with patient’s data, database with ECG data and mapping database), hiding all server components under the virtual private network, and transferring data via secure HTTPS connection. Conclusions. Developed system successfully solve their goals. It is being used now in the Finnish company Cardiolyse. Keywords: telemedicine, client-server, medical devices, electrocardiography, cybersecurity, heart rate variability