Mobile and E-Healthcare: Recent Trends and Future Directions

Abstract

In the past decade, wearable sensors and devices have evolved as key technological objects which have dramatically revolutionized the next generation healthcare solutions. This is the era of cut-throat competition filled with immense stress which leads to the detection of various diseases even in the people of early age. Moreover, people are becoming more health conscious in developed as well as developing countries. The miniaturization of sensors and devices and tendency of people to be physician-independent have lead the researchers across the globe to come up with numerous healthcare solutions which are not only ubiquitous but are affordable also. Wearable medical devices (WMDs) capable of monitoring some of the most common physiological parameters- pulse, blood oxygen saturation, 2 lead ECG, heart rhythm, skin temperature etc. have already been popular. Ambulatory and long-term health monitoring for elderly people is another aspect, particularly for countries like China and Japan where population aging is increasing. With the development of networks, collected health information can be sent to the cloud server of the nearest clinic or hospital. Doctors can then provide patients with medical advice. Thus, WMDs or WMD-based applications can help both patients and doctors in daily health monitoring. The paradigm has gradually shifted to the mobile health (mHealth) - an integration of ever advancing wireless communication, ubiquitous computing, and wearable device technologies. The mHealth can be regarded as the most advanced version of healthcare monitoring.