AAL open source system for the monitoring and intelligent control of nursing homes

[EN] SAFE-ECH is an innovative intelligent AAL open source system for monitoring nursing homes, that creates an Ambient Intelligent environment in a residence by collecting and storing sensor monitoring data, performing intelligent data analysis and specific actions to enhance the safety, comfort and efficient care of aged people. Our system implements open standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium complying with Observations & Measurements Schema (O&M), SensorML and Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) specifications. Our system adapts to the specific needs of each nursing home, integrating the required sensors, actuators, rules and services. It is scalable and allows the management of several residences simultaneously.This research was partially funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme as part of the INTERIoT project under Grant Agreement 687283, and by SAFE-ECH funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Industria, Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) under Grant Agreement RTC-2015-4502-1González-Usach, R.; Collado, V.; Esteve Domingo, M.; Palau Salvador, CE. (2017). AAL open source system for the monitoring and intelligent control of nursing homes. IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICNSC.2017.8000072S1

Research on the Development Status and the Trend of Smart Home

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology provides new directions and contents for the development of smart homes, breaks the time and space barriers between people and home systems, and the application of IoT technology realizes the integration and management of information between smart home devices, prompting people\u27s home life to be safe, comfortable and intelligent, exploring the life needs of contemporary users, and building a harmonious relationship between people and smart home systems. At present, smart home is developing rapidly and has a greater impact on people\u27s home life. This paper will elaborate on the development status of smart homes in the context of the Internet of Things and explore and study the significance and development trend of Internet of Things technology in the field of the smart home

Security Issues in Healthcare Applications Using Wireless Medical Sensor Networks: A Survey

Healthcare applications are considered as promising fields for wireless sensor networks, where patients can be monitored using wireless medical sensor networks (WMSNs). Current WMSN healthcare research trends focus on patient reliable communication, patient mobility, and energy-efficient routing, as a few examples. However, deploying new technologies in healthcare applications without considering security makes patient privacy vulnerable. Moreover, the physiological data of an individual are highly sensitive. Therefore, security is a paramount requirement of healthcare applications, especially in the case of patient privacy, if the patient has an embarrassing disease. This paper discusses the security and privacy issues in healthcare application using WMSNs. We highlight some popular healthcare projects using wireless medical sensor networks, and discuss their security. Our aim is to instigate discussion on these critical issues since the success of healthcare application depends directly on patient security and privacy, for ethic as well as legal reasons. In addition, we discuss the issues with existing security mechanisms, and sketch out the important security requirements for such applications. In addition, the paper reviews existing schemes that have been recently proposed to provide security solutions in wireless healthcare scenarios. Finally, the paper ends up with a summary of open security research issues that need to be explored for future healthcare applications using WMSNs

Security and Privacy Issues in IoT Healthcare Application for Disabled Users in Developing Economies

In this paper, we explore the security and privacy issues of Internet of Things (IoT) healthcare applications for special needs users. IoT enables health-related organizations to lift important data from diverse sources in real-time and this helps in precise decision-making. The transformation of the health sector, required enhancement and efficiency of protective systems, thereby reducing data vulnerability and hence, providing opportunities for secure patient data, particularly, for special needs patients. A quantitative method for purposive sampling technique was adopted and eighty-eight respondents provided the process of how the IoT technology was utilised. Data findings indicated that IoT monitoring devices have the detective ability for a person with special needs living alone with problems related to vital signs of diseases or disabilities. Personal patient health records are integrated into the e-health Centre via IoT technologies. For data privacy, security, and confidentiality, patients' records are kept on Personal Health Record Systems (PHRS). The research revealed suspected breaches of information due to cyber-attacks on the probability of false data errors in the PHRS, leading to special needs personal data leakage

Internet of Things Architectures, Technologies, Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions for Enhanced Living Environments and Healthcare Systems: A Review

Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolution of the Internet and has been gaining increased attention from researchers in both academic and industrial environments. Successive technological enhancements make the development of intelligent systems with a high capacity for communication and data collection possible, providing several opportunities for numerous IoT applications, particularly healthcare systems. Despite all the advantages, there are still several open issues that represent the main challenges for IoT, e.g., accessibility, portability, interoperability, information security, and privacy. IoT provides important characteristics to healthcare systems, such as availability, mobility, and scalability, that o er an architectural basis for numerous high technological healthcare applications, such as real-time patient monitoring, environmental and indoor quality monitoring, and ubiquitous and pervasive information access that benefits health professionals and patients. The constant scientific innovations make it possible to develop IoT devices through countless services for sensing, data fusing, and logging capabilities that lead to several advancements for enhanced living environments (ELEs). This paper reviews the current state of the art on IoT architectures for ELEs and healthcare systems, with a focus on the technologies, applications, challenges, opportunities, open-source platforms, and operating systems. Furthermore, this document synthesizes the existing body of knowledge and identifies common threads and gaps that open up new significant and challenging future research directions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Is Blockchain for Internet of Medical Things a Panacea for COVID-19 Pandemic?

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has deeply influenced the lifestyle of the general public and the healthcare system of the society. As a promising approach to address the emerging challenges caused by the epidemic of infectious diseases like COVID-19, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) deployed in hospitals, clinics, and healthcare centers can save the diagnosis time and improve the efficiency of medical resources though privacy and security concerns of IoMT stall the wide adoption. In order to tackle the privacy, security, and interoperability issues of IoMT, we propose a framework of blockchain-enabled IoMT by introducing blockchain to incumbent IoMT systems. In this paper, we review the benefits of this architecture and illustrate the opportunities brought by blockchain-enabled IoMT. We also provide use cases of blockchain-enabled IoMT on fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, including the prevention of infectious diseases, location sharing and contact tracing, and the supply chain of injectable medicines. We also outline future work in this area.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Systematic Review of Internet of Things Security

The Internet of Things has become a new paradigm of current communications technology that requires a deeper overview to map its application domains, advantages, and disadvantages. There have been a number of in-depth research efforts to study various aspects of IoT. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no literature that have discussed specifically and deeply about the security and privacy aspects of IoT. To that end, this paper aims at providing a more comprehensive and systematic review of IoT security based on the survey result of the most recent literature over the past three years (2015 to 2017). We have classified IoT security research based on the research objectives, application domains, vulner-abilities/threats, countermeasures, platforms, proto-cols, and performance measurements. We have also provided some security challenges for further research

Remote Rehabilitation: A solution to Overloaded & Scarce Health Care Systems

The population across Northern Europe is aging. Coupled with socio-economic challenges, health care systems are at risk of overloading and incurring unsustainable high costs. Rehabilitation services are used disproportionately by older people. One solution pertinent to rural areas is to change the model of rehabilitation to incorporate new technologies. This has the potential to free resources and reduce costs. However, implementation is challenging. In the Northern Periphery and Artic Programme (NPA), the Smart sensor Devices for rehabilitation and Connected health (SENDoc) project [1] is focused on introducing wearable sensor systems among elderly communities to support their rehabilitation. It is important to understand the context into which change is introduced. Therefore, an overview of the current state of health care systems in the four partner countries is presented, defining the concept of rehabilitation and how remote rehabilitation is currently delivered. Advantages (e.g. enhanced outcomes, less cost and enhanced patient engagement), and disadvantages of remote rehabilitation (e.g. complexity involved in the use of technology, design and safety issues) are discussed. It is concluded that the key advantage of remote rehabilitation is the potential to support change in patient behaviour, empowering active participation and living independently, with less need to travel for face-to-face sessions. Remote rehabilitation can make enhance quality of health care service delivery. However, all relevant stakeholders including medical staff and patients should be included in the design of the technology employed with a focus on simplicity, usability and robustness. Compliance with Security and the new GDPR regulation will be key to supporting remote rehabilitation. In addition, the diversity of available platforms and devices must also be supported to ensure interoperability. Finally, remote rehabilitation needs to be further validated in practice. Attempts to implement and sustain change should be cognisant of local and current organization of health care and of existing enablers and barriers

The Implications of IoT in the Modern Healthcare Industry post COVID-19

The healthcare industry has recently seen a massive surge in the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. IoT’s main objective is to provide people with the necessities in these uncertain times. During the pandemic, the availability of IoT-based healthcare systems is crucial. Using IoT, healthcare systems are becoming more individualized, allowing for more precise patient diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Since the beginning of the epidemic, many researchers have worked tirelessly to find solutions to this global problem, and IoT technology has the potential to revamp the current system completely. Over 6 million people had lost their lives by the time this document was produced due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic. Many lives could have been saved. The problem today is that when people are too sick, they cannot call or contact an ambulance or get safely to the hospital. With new technology, perhaps a button or programming into a device, people in need can press a button on their phone or call out into a voice-enabled device to contact the ambulance or other emergency contacts that they might have. The research has found that if significant companies take this seriously, it could be a remarkable idea that could save many lives