Towards a Novel In-community Healthcare Monitoring System over Wireless Sensor Networks

Recently, new technological advances in biosensors, micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, lightweight and intelligent physiological sensor nodes. These nodes, capable of sensing, processing and communicating one or more vital signs, can be seamlessly integrated into wireless body sensor network for health monitoring. Using different forms of communication technologies (such as WLAN, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Satellite, GSM/GPRS, 3G, WiMax, etc.), these networks promise to revolutionize healthcare by allowing inexpensive, non-invasive, continuous, ambulatory health monitoring with almost real-time updates of medical records via the Internet. The objective of this paper is to provide a snapshot of the applications of wireless sensor networks in healthcare monitoring. After analyzing a common three-tier architecture, a novel in-community healthcare monitoring system is introduced and studied. A brief review of the spectrum of these applications and the potential benefits of these efforts are also presented.