Wireless system for remote monitoring of oxygen saturation and heart rate

This paper describes the realization of a wireless oxygen saturation and heart rate system for patient monitoring in a limited area. The proposed system will allow the automatic remote monitoring in hospitals, at home, at work, in real time, of persons with chronic illness, of elderly people, and of those having high medical risk. The system can be used for long-time continuous patient monitoring, as medical assistance of a chronic condition, as part of a diagnostic procedure, or recovery from an acute event. The blood oxygen saturation level (SpO₂) and heart rate (HR) are continuously measured using commercially available pulse oximeters and then transferred to a central monitoring station via a wireless sensor network (WSN). The central monitoring station runs a patient monitor application that receives the SpO₂ and HR from WSN, processes these values and activates the alarms when the results exceed the preset limits. A user-friendly Graphical User Interface was developed for the patient monitor application to display the received measurements from all monitored patients. A prototype of the system has been developed, implemented and tested.