Dynamic group management as an enhancement to emergency healthcare using policies

Successful medical emergency preventative measures or actual emergency resolution is not entirely down to one individual, but more the result of the establishment and behaviour of a group of individuals and services. This is highly evident in the healthcare domain: the introduction of pervasive healthcare systems allows for the interconnection of various stake holders, such as patients, doctors, medical monitoring services, and the patientpsilas family. Communication within a group can be extremely useful to manage and resolve emergency situations, such as helping a patient affected by a life-threatening hypogylcemic condition. At the same time, it also requires new tools for managing these groups in an effective and secure way. However, as more specialist services become available the management of these groups is increasing in magnitude. This paper defines different group types and proposes a framework, which allows for the dynamic management of such groups using policies. The applicability of this generic framework for the purpose of pervasive healthcare applications is demonstrated by concrete examples and use cases.