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Top1. Introduction
The collaboration of telecommunication techniques with healthcare directs a way towards “e-Health” (Ahmed, Millat, Rahman, Alam, & Zishan, 2015). This is established with the help of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The inclusion of WSN with the healthcare industry is definitely considered a boon which results in smart and diverse practices for monitoring one’s health. WSN are sensors used to monitor physical or environmental parameters and pass the data through a network to a particular destination (Pathinarupothi, Ramesh, & Rangan, 2016). This idea helps in developing small devices that can transfer patient’s vital parameters to a remote location wirelessly (Sumalan, Lupu, Arstine, & Onaca, 2015). Hence reducing the challenge faced by the doctors in monitoring multiple patients simultaneously (Mankar, Bhute, Thool, Rasnala, Handa, 2014; Purnima & Singh, 2014). Sensors are deployed in the human body which practically detects any abnormality at an early stage. The sensors are always ON and continuously gather information in real time. This assists in decision making for the treatment (Sreejith, Rahul, & Jisha, 2016) and increases the survival rate of any patient. The wireless sensors help in:
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Gathering data in real time;
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Increasing the mobility of the patients i.e. they need not be hindered with cables (Paksuniemi, Sorvoja, Alasaarela, & Myllyla, 2006; Sokullu, & Akkaú, 2010), which in turn increase the self-confidence and provide a positive outlook for life;
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Giving the doctors a timeout as they need not be physically present to track down the vitals, respectively. The entire system is scalable, portable, user-friendly and unobtrusive.
This project aims at developing a reliable system to monitor and transfer physiological parameters of a patient wirelessly. Researchers Shin, Huh, & Pak (2007) mention Wireless WAN, Bluetooth and ZIGBEE as the emerging technologies for a wireless transmission. As quoted by Poonia & Singh (2012) VANETs integrate Wi-fi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, IRA, ZIGBEE for vehicle communications. In VANETs every vehicle behaves as a mobile node (Poonia, Bhargava & Kumar, 2015). As the communication is restricted here, this project aims at simple communication using the GSM and ZIGBEE technology. Figure 1 gives an outlook of the proposed system. The parameters considered are: temperature and heart rate. The module is designed to acquire data from various sensors. Not only is the system very economical (Liang, Barua, Chen et al., 2012), it also consumes less power and provides faster response.
Figure 1. The idea of wireless patient monitoring system (Internet source)
An Arduino Uno microcontroller is implemented to analyze the sensor output. An algorithm is executed for the same using Arduino Ide software. The patient’s parameters are sent to the doctor for further intervention. The doctor is alerted only during any adverse conditions by sending a message using the GSM module. The simulation of the system is done using the Proteus software.