Healthcare PANs: Personal Area Networks for trauma care and home care

The first hour following the trauma is of crucial importance in trauma care. The sooner treatment begins, the better the ultimate outcome for the patient. Generally the initial treatment is handled by paramedical personnel arriving at the site of the accident with an ambulance. There is evidence to show that if the expertise of the on-site paramedic team can be supported by immediate and continuous access to and communication with the expert medical team at the hospital, patient outcomes can be improved. After care also influences the ultimate recovery of the patient. After-treatment follow up often occurs in-hospital in spite of the fact that care at home can offer more advantages and can accelerate recovery. Based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies, in a previous paper [1] we presented an initial vision of two future healthcare settings, supported by applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. The Virtual Trauma Team application involves high quality wireless multimedia communications between ambulance paramedics and the hospital facilitated by paramedic Body Area Networks (BANs) [2] and an ambulance-based Vehicle Area Network (VAN). The VAN supports bi-directional streaming audio and video communication between the ambulance and the hospital even when moving at speed. The clinical motivation for Virtual Trauma Team is to increase survival rates in trauma care. The Virtual Homecare Team application enables homecare coordinated by home nursing services and supported by the patient's PAN which consists of a patient BAN in combination with an ambient intelligent home environment. The homecare PAN provides intelligent monitoring and support functions and the possibility to ad hoc network to the visiting health professionals’ own BANs as well as high quality multimedia communication links to remote members of the virtual team. The motivation for Virtual Homecare Team is to improve quality of life and independence for patients by supporting care at home; the economic motivation is to replace expensive hospital-based care with homecare by virtual teams using wireless technology to support the patient and the carers. In this paper we develop the vision further and focus in particular on the concepts of personal and body area networks

Effects of PID Controller on Performance of Dish Antenna Position Control for Distributed Mobile Telemedicine Nodes

Introduction of telemedicine into developing nation’s healthcare delivery scheme could be a solution to a number of challenges facing the scheme including acute shortage of medical personnel. Because of distribution and mobility nature of the system combined with Nigeria’s large land mass, the resulting propagation delay will be large which may lead to system poor quality of performance or instability if the system is not compensated. This study aimed at assessing the effects of introducing Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller into the control of the position of dish antenna mounted on distributed mobile telemedicine nodes within Nigeria when the link is via Nigcomsat-1R. The system closed loop composite transfer function was obtained and subjected to unit step forcing function which then yielded time domain parameters. There was reduction in the value of system time domain parameters obtained for PID controller compensated system compared to uncompensated system. Based on the value of the system time domain parameters obtained from the simulation, introduction of PID controller into this system has improved the system response significantly

A Proposed Clinical Decision Support System Based on Virtual Telemedicine (Case Study Iraqi Rural Areas)

The patient continues with the hospital directly leading to the hospital inflation and low efficiency and high cost of patient work.So the Solutions: Creating simple electronic environment while providing units and medical intermediate (virtual health center) between the doctor and patient. This assessment leads to pressure the cost of treatment and provide easier service and high efficiency and real time. The dominant feature of the health system in Iraq is built on the basis of treatment in public hospitals is always because the private sector hospitals are expensive and this put pressure on public hospitals and health centers, especially in rural and remote places form. In this paper, proposed set up a virtual health centers include websites, public health centers, medical clinics and linking them with instruments and smart phones by providing information of physicians and medical services provided and citizen media deadlines as well as linked to social networking sites. Citizens can choose the physician through the data and information available base, this ensures the benefit of doctors owners of rare specialties from anywhere in Iraq at any time and can be an Iraqi citizen reporter his doctor anywhere, at any time for the purpose of diagnosis through the data and information related to telephones patient base to ensure continuous communication easily and cost low

Real-Time and Secure Wireless Health Monitoring

We present a framework for a wireless health monitoring system using wireless networks such as ZigBee. Vital signals are collected and processed using a 3-tiered architecture. The first stage is the mobile device carried on the body that runs a number of wired and wireless probes. This device is also designed to perform some basic processing such as the heart rate and fatal failure detection. At the second stage, further processing is performed by a local server using the raw data transmitted by the mobile device continuously. The raw data is also stored at this server. The processed data as well as the analysis results are then transmitted to the service provider center for diagnostic reviews as well as storage. The main advantages of the proposed framework are (1) the ability to detect signals wirelessly within a body sensor network (BSN), (2) low-power and reliable data transmission through ZigBee network nodes, (3) secure transmission of medical data over BSN, (4) efficient channel allocation for medical data transmission over wireless networks, and (5) optimized analysis of data using an adaptive architecture that maximizes the utility of processing and computational capacity at each platform

Simulación del retraso en la transmisión de datos en una red celular debido al Handoff

This paper presents the outputs of numerical simulation of the effect of a mobile device's speed in delay of data transmission in a cellular network, because of Handoff. Code generation and simulations was done using Matlab's development environment. As a result, the responses of cellular network system by varying the parameters of mobile speed and time of completion of the test were analysed, and a model of the proposed system for determining the delay based on these two parameters was obtained.El presente artículo presenta el resultado de la simulación numérica del efecto de la velocidad de un dispositivo móvil en el retraso de la transmisión de datos en una red celular debido a Handoff. La generación del código y realización de las simulaciones se hizo por medio del entorno integrado de desarrollo Matlab. Como resultado se analizaron las respuestas del sistema de red celular al variar los parámetros de velocidad del dispositivo móvil y tiempo de realización de la prueba, y se obtuvo un modelo del sistema planteado que permite determinar el retraso en función de estos dos parámetros

Simulation of delay in data transmission in a cellular network due to Handoff

RESUMEN: El presente artículo presenta el resultado de la simulación numérica del efecto de la velocidad de un dispositivo móvil en el retraso de la transmisión de datos en una red celular debido a Handoff. La generación del código y realización de las simulaciones se hizo por medio del entorno integrado de desarrollo Matlab. Como resultado se analizaron las respuestas del sistema de red celular al variar los parámetros de velocidad del dispositivo móvil y tiempo de realización de la prueba, y se obtuvo un modelo del sistema planteado que permite determinar el retraso en función de estos dos parámetros.ABSTRACT: This paper presents the outputs of numerical simulation of the effect of a mobile device's speed in delay of data transmission in a cellular network, because of Handoff. Code generation and simulations was done using Matlab's development environment. As a result, the responses of cellular network system by varying the parameters of mobile speed and time of completion of the test were analysed, and a model of the proposed system for determining the delay based on these two parameters was obtained

Ubiquitous Computing for Remote Cardiac Patient Monitoring: A Survey

New wireless technologies, such as wireless LAN and sensor networks, for telecardiology purposes give new possibilities for monitoring vital parameters with wearable biomedical sensors, and give patients the freedom to be mobile and still be under continuous monitoring and thereby better quality of patient care. This paper will detail the architecture and quality-of-service (QoS) characteristics in integrated wireless telecardiology platforms. It will also discuss the current promising hardware/software platforms for wireless cardiac monitoring. The design methodology and challenges are provided for realistic implementation

Notärztliche Traumaversorgung durch den Rettungshubschrauber „Christoph Europa 2“ aus Rheine 2001 – 2004 im Vergleich mit den Erfahrungen in der Stadt Münster

Der Rettungshubschrauber (RTH) Christoph Europa 2 in Rheine hatte in der Zeit von 2001 bis 2004 1774 Einsätze die als Trauma eingestuft wurden. Anhand dieser Traumaeinsätze werden in dieser Arbeit das Unfallgeschehen, die Verletzungsart und die präklinische Versorgung dargestellt. In der Stadt Münster gab es nur einen Traumaanteil von 10%. In Rheine war die Anzahl der Patienten mit einem Polytrauma fast 3-mal so groß als in der Stadt Münster. Mehr als die Hälfte der Patienten war zwischen 20 und 50 Jahren alt. Die Unfälle wurden zu 21% mit einem PKW/LKW verursacht, in 11% der Fälle handelte es sich um einen Motorradunfall. Ebenfalls wurden, wie in Münster, die meisten Patienten direkt in ein Schwerpunktkrankenhaus gebracht, wodurch sie einer definitiven Versorgung zugeführt werden konnten. Die häufigsten Verletzungen gab es im Bereich des Kopfes, danach folgten Verletzungen der Extremitäten. Patienten mit einem Polytrauma hatten zu 64% ein Thoraxtrauma

Notärztliche Traumaerstversorgung:Erfahrungen in der Stadt Münster 1998 - 2002

Unter 20.562 dokumentierten Notfallrettungen in der Stadt Münster im Zeitraum von 1998-2002 befinden sich auch 2159 Traumapatienten. Das Unfallgeschehen, die Verletzungsarten und die präklinische Versorgung werden dargestellt. Der Anteil der Traumapatienten lag bei 10%, wobei 7% dieser der Diagnose Polytrauma zugeteilt wurden. Das männliche Geschlecht überwog mit 60%, bei Polytrauma 72%. In 43% kam es zu Verkehrsunfällen, in 31% zum "stumpfen Trauma", in 9% zum "Sturz aus der Höhe", in 6% zum "penetrierenden Trauma" und in 6% zum Sturz in der Wohnung. Einzelverletzungen überwogen mit 71%, dabei mit 23% Frakturen der Extremitäten, 17% SHT, 16% Wirbelsäulenverletzungen und 14% Thoraxtraumen. 73% des Gesamtkollektivs wurden einer definitiven Versorgung zugeführt. Die logistischen Aspekte im Ablauf der Rettungskette werden umgesetzt, die notfallmedizinische Infrastruktur ist als ausreichend zu bewerten

Tavarua : a mobile telemedicine system using WWAN striping

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-78).Tavarua is a platform designed to support mobile telemedicine systems over wireless wide area networks, WWANs. It utilizes network striping and other complementary techniques to send uni-directional near real time video and audio data streams from a imobile node to a stationary location. The key technical challenge is transmitting high-bandwidth, loss-sensitive data over multiple low-bandwidth, lossy channels. We overcome these challenges using dynamic adjustment of the encoding parameters and a novel video encoding technique (grid encoding) that minimizes the impact of packet losses. Using five WWAN interfaces, our system reliably and consistently transmits audio and diagnostic quality video, with median PSNR values that range from 33.716dB to 36.670dB, with near real-time latencies. We present a study of the characteristic behavior of WWANs, and a description of our system architecture based in part on the lessons gleaned from that study. Through a set of experiments where we transmit video and audio data from a moving vehicle we evaluate the system, focusing on consistency, reliability, and the quality of the audio and video streams. These experiments demonstrate that we can transmit high quality video and audio in varying conditions and even in the presence of hardware failures.by Jennifer Carlisle.S.M