Wireless Patient Health Monitoring System Deepesh K Rathore

Department of Electronics and Communication

National Institute of Technology Bhopal, India

deepeshrathore0734@gmail .com

Ankita Upmanyu Department of Electronics and

Communication National Institute of Technology

Bhopal, India ankita.upmanyu@gmail.com

Deepanshu lulla Department of Electronics and

Communication National Institute of Technology

Bhopal, India deepanshu.lulla@gmail .com

Abstract- This paper presents a wireless system which enables real-time health monitoring of multiple patient(s). In health care centers patient' s data such asheart rate needs to be constantly monitored. The proposed systemmonitors the heart rate and other such data of patient's body.For example heart rate is measured through a Photoplethysmograph. A transmitting module is attached which continuously transmits the encoded serial data using Zigbee module. A receiver unit is placed in doctor's cabin, which receives and decodes the data and continuously displays it on a User interface visible on PC/Laptop.Thus doctor can observe and monitor many patients at the same time. System also continuously monitors the patient(s) data and in case of any potential irregularities, in the condition of a patient, the alarm system connected to the system gives an audio-visual warning signal that the patient of a particular room needs immediate attention. In case, the doctor is not in his chamber, the GSM modem connected to the system also sends a message to all the doctors of that unit giving the room number of the patient who needs immediate care.

Keywords-Zigbee, Healtll Monitoring, GSM, wireless.

I . INTRODUCTION

The modern healthcare system enables medical professionals to remotely perform real-time monitoring, early diagnosis and treatment for potential health hazards. Medical telemetry systems, also known as telemedicine, are evolving rapidly as wireless communication technology advances. Much advancement has been done recently in commercial products and research prototypes for remote health monitoring. These advancements rely on wired/wireless communication networks to deliver patient consultations and medical diagnosis. The modern healthcare is applied for providing more efficient utilization of physicians, reducing the cost for hospital stays, reducing the skill level and minimizing the frequency of visits of home-care professionals, reducing hospital readmission rates and promoting health education at various levels [ l ] .

I n hospitals, where patient' s condition needs to be constantly monitored, it is usually done by a doctor or other paramedical staff. In developing countries like India due to paucity of specialized Doctors, it becomes difficult when the same doctor has to monitor many patients simultaneously. Hence in such a condition, the doctor may be unaware of the condition of all the patients. In the case of an emergency, even a little delay in treatment may pose a threat to patient' s life.

978-1 -4799- 1 607-8/1 3/$3 1 . 00©201 3 IEEE 4 1 5

There have been many related research works in this area. Sowmyasudhan S. and Manjunath S. [2] proposed a system which uses sensors to detect pathological parameters of a person. These signals are then processed and monitored with the help of a microcontroller. A cell phone is also interfaced to this system, which uses the TEXT application protocol of the cell phone to alarm the respective doctors.

Edward Teaw et al. [3] proposed a system that uses

wireless sensors along with RFID and internet to monitor

users' vital signs and notifies relatives and medical personnel

of their location during life threatening situations. Zimu Li et

al. [4] propose a wireless healthmonitoring system that can

monitor individual vital signsand send them through a wireless

network to a hospital or ahealth care provider. The papers [5]

- [8] are examples of health monitoring systems proposed in

various IEEE conferences from 2003 to 20 1 2. They are

compared in Figure 1 with our system on the basis of:

1 ) Proposition of generic Architecture

2) System is wireless or not

3) Presence of user friendly and compatible User Interface

4) Capability of transferring multiple signals

5) Portability

6) SMS facility

The primary advantages of our system are evident owing to

its pervasive monitoring and updating of data of multiple

patients . Further processing of data is done to facilitate

diagnosis by providing wide range of reader friendly graphs of

different intervals during the day.

This system would make the work of the supervising doctor very easy as one can monitor multiple patients at the same time. Also,even when the doctor is not in his chamber, he will be immediately appraised about the patients' condition. This will greatly reduce the work load of Doctor and paramedical staff to a great extent

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section-2 discusses our proposed system' s architecture in detail . Section-3 deals with the technical aspects of the system. Section-4 concludes the overall paper and discusses future works .

General Wireless Graphical User Multiple Signal Portability SMS Facility Architecture System Interface transfer

Capability

[2} X X Yes Yes X Yes

[3} X X X X Yes Yes

[I} X Yes X X X X

[4} X X Yes (Graphical X Yes X LCD)

Our Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes paper

Figure I: Comparison of Different Health monitoring Systems with ours

II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The architecture of a good health monitoring system can be striated into 4 distinct modules viz. 1) Patient data Input module 2) Data Communication module 3) User interface module 4) Processing module

A. Patient data Input module

This module functions to input meaningful data from the patient' s body. Most of the signals including the PPG signal is analog in nature. In our system the data is taken from photoplethysmograph and is converted into digital form, using

... " 'II

Figure 2 : Implementation of System's Architecture

ADC of microcontroller. The digital data appears in the form of discrete voltages which needs to be interpreted to compute the heart rate.

B. Data Communication module

The discrete data of voltages is transmitted via UART of microcontroller via Zigbee. For the prototype we configured

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the Zigbee for peer to peer communication. The data is received by the host Zigbee connected to the PC/laptop of Medical Supervisors or Doctor. The Zigbee ' s serial data is converted into USB compatible data format that can be understood by computer. The GSM sends a message to the medical staff and the Doctor of that unit giving the room number of the patient who needs examination.

C. User interface module

This module consists of a Graphical user Interface in the form of standalone executable file that helps the doctor to continuously supervise heart rate of multiple patients simultaneously. This GUI standalone file is developed with the help of MAT LAB .

Module also has the capability to store heart rate values and hence this helps in assisting doctor with Average Heart rate of every hour of the day. This data can be plotted to facilitate easy understanding for the doctor in charge.

Important details like the name of the patient, history of health problems and contact number of nearest relative can also be stored within the system.

D. Processing module

The processing module consists of a microcontroller and a Computer/Laptop. The function of the microcontroller is to to convert analog data into digital domain. This data is further transferred via Zigbee. Zigbee has the capability to process analog values and send them. However we don't wish to delimit the scope of signals that are sent to only heart rate . Other important signals like body temperature and blood glucose levels can also easily sent within our system. Other signals apart from heart rate can also be transmitted within this architecture. Further having a microcontroller also enhances the scope and functionality as an Audio Visual alarming system can be provided outside a patient' s room.

On the other hand the function of the Computer is to receive this digital data and extract heartbeat from it. The Heartbeat is directly proportional the frequency of the signal . Hence on calculating approximate frequency of the PPG signal, we are able to compute the heart rate.

Further work of this module includes appraising of emergency signals to the medical staff via a Visual Signal outside the patient' s room and sending text message to the mobile phones of Doctor and paramedical specialists.

Lastly due to pervasive monitoring and ubiquitous computing ability, the patient' s day to day health graphs can be seen and printed via the Graphical user Interface.

III . WORKING

• The system takes data from different devices meant for getting information about patient's condition such as pu lse monitor and converts the ana log signa l to digital form, if req u i red, us ing the ADC of microcontrol ler .

• The discrete data of voltages is tra nsm itted via UART of microcontro l ler via Zigbee.

• The Zigbee's serial data is converted into USB compati b le data format that can be understood by computer. This is done using FT232 Ie .

• The GSM sends a message to the medica l staff and the Doctor of that unit giving the room number of the patient who needs exa m ination.

• The HC I module cons ists of a Graphical user I nterface that helps the doctor to conti nuously supervise heart rate of mult ip le patients s imu ltaneous ly.

• It also faci l itaes study of the pateint's data over a period of time.

• I mporta nt deta i l s l i ke the name of the patient, history of health problems a n d contact n u mber of nea rest relative can a lso be stored with i n the system.

• For monitoring heart beat it is progra mmed to count the number of pu l ses in rea l t ime and display it on doctor's pc/la ptop.

• The progra m also checks the heart rate and if it goes outside the safe l imit, it gives a n aud io-visua l warn ing signal to the doctor v ia the G U I .

• The system also sends a message t o a l l t h e doctors of that unit giving the room number of the patient who needs immediate attention, in case of any emergency

Figure 3: Division of working as per modular Architecture

A. Hardware Used

1) GSM Modem

IV. TECHNOLOGY

GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communications. In our system, GSM modem is connected to pc/laptop through FT232 USB to serial converter. It is used to send messages to doctor(s) to inform them about any

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Figure 4 PCB design of the system

emergency condition. The communication between laptop and modem is done through AT commands.

2) Zigbee Zigbee is a specification for a suite of high level

communication protocols using small, low-power digital radios based on an IEEE 802. 1 5 . 4 standard for personal area networks.

3) Microcontroller A microcontroller is a small computer on a

single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals.We used Atmega 8L in our system. The Atmel ®A VR ® ATmega8 is a low­power CMOS 8-bit microcontroller based on the A VR RISC architecture. In our system microcontroller is used for processing of received signals, conversion of analog signals to digital if required and communicating with Zigbee module for wireless transmission of the signals.

4) FT232- USB to Serial Converter FT232 is a USB to serial UART interface. It provides a

Single chip USB to asynchronous serial data transfer interface. It supports data transfer rates from 3 00 baud to 3 M baud (RS422, RS485 and RS232) at TTL levels. In our project it is used to connect Zigbee and GSM modules to the laptop placed at the receiver side.

B. Software Used

1) MA TLAB MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a numerical computing

environment and fourth-generation programming language. We used MATLAB to develop a GUI that takes the incoming data from Zigbee, processes it and displays it on the screen of laptop while continuously updating it. It also monitors patient(s) data and sets off an alarm if any irregularity is found.

2) Code Vision Avr and XCTU

CV A VR was used to program the micro controller. XCTU was used to configure the Zigbee.

V. CONCLUSION

Hence in this paper we have propose a system which can be very useful for bio-medical applications, where doctors can monitor the subject(s) condition from the place where they are sitting and hence proper and timely care to the patient can be given. This will help in curbing deaths due to delay in timely care. Further in case of emergency, the doctor is also informed about the patient via SMS, thus even when the doctor is not in his chamber; he will be immediately informed about the patients' condition. It will be of great help for the patients, as in any case of emergency, they can get immediate treatment.

VI. FUTURE WORK

Our future works will include improvements in the system. With the above mentioned system, keeping this as the basic foundation in Tele-medical fields we can build a more robust system that helps in integration of inpatient and out-patient services. We can integrate various services such as messages, e-mails, voice messages from physicians / nurses / patients, to Patient' s family. With further technology we can build Wireless Long Distance [WiLD] Clinical Applications to deliver expertise to anywhere in the world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable help provided by Dr. Arvind Rajawat, Professor O.P. Meena, Director Dr. Appu Kuttan K. K.and our Alma Mater Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal .

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