Healthcare Compunetics: An End-to-End Architecture for Self-Care Service Provision

Extending healthcare to the community introduces a number of new challenges for the development of information technology infrastructures. A core component of the new self-care infrastructures will be wearable or implantable sensors and actuators that monitor vital signs and take proactive actions to respond to observed clinical conditions. In this paper, we introduce the three core elements of the Healthcare Compunetics architecture developed with a view to support the new self-care services: i-notes is a system that extends the electronic patient record to include non-verified data collection by the sensors; i-WAND is a wearable device that offers pluggable body area connectivity, local storage and processing and remote communication to the diagnostic service centre; and the VMW Protocol which allows sensors to communicate effectively with remote healthcare servers. Finally, we conclude this discussion with a brief overview of our current work on interaction design.

Publication(s)

Appeared in: The Body Sensor Networks Workshop, Imperial College, London, UK, 6-7 April 2004