Community Medical Network (CMN): Architecture and implementation

Internet of Things (IoT) built on the existing (mobile) Internet has emerged as a solution to effectively interact with environment around us. In this paper, we investigate the application of IoT in the area of pervasive medicine. We propose a practical network architecture for local medicine and health system based on GSM/3G/Internet infrastructure and Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN), called Community Medical Networks (CMN). CMN needs lower cost for deployment, supports user´s mobility, can reduce the time and cost of diagnosis and treatment of diseases (especially chronic/paroxysmal diseases) as well as realizes individualization (patient-centered), cooperation and data-sharing in a distributed manner. We describe the implementation of CMN in detail in application level and operation level (business model). We also analyze the requirement of traffic related parameters of CMN when using WCDMA and Zigbee-based WBASN. A promising use case of CMN for heart disease is given to illustrate the feasibility, economical and social benefit of implementing CMN in typical Chinese cities.