| The motivation for this research is to simplify the process of dynamically assembling medical components into patient-centric health monitoring systems that match patient needs. Patient-centric healthcare has the potential to reduce the need for in-person consultations, minimize the duration of hospital stays, and lower healthcare expenses. Compared to traditional medical devices, these medical components require additional features, including (1) wearability, (2) ease of use, and (3) secure data transmission. This dissertation addresses the first two features, emphasizing ease of use.; Ease of use suggests plug-and-play behavior, where device interconnection requires little or no setup. This feature requires connectivity and interoperability services such as those addressed in open system interconnection standards. This dissertation summarizes candidate standards and presents medical components that adopt the Bluetooth and Medical Information Bus standards to achieve plug-and-play performance.; To accommodate health monitoring needs in the home, this project utilizes medical components in three categories: base stations, data loggers, and sensor units, where each category complies with the Medical Information Bus standard. Health monitoring systems can be dynamically constructed with these components. Sensor units in this demonstration system include a wearable pulse oximeter, a wearable electrocardiograph, and a nearby weight scale that also measures room temperature and humidity. The data logger and sensors use Microchip PIC microcontroller platforms. The base station consists of a personal computer running a LabVIEW interface. All components use BrightCom Callisto RTM Bluetooth modules for wireless communication.; Within the framework of the plug-and-play health monitoring system, the dissertation also addresses wearable pulse oximeter design and presents a novel algorithm for separating motion artifacts from photoplethysmographic signals.; The successful prototype of the plug-and-play system involves design and implementation issues resulted primarily from the migration of Medical Information Bus to the embedded level and the integration of Medical Information Bus with Bluetooth. The system demonstrates automatic device detection, connection, association, self-description, and data uploads. This effort shows that (a) medical components can simultaneously support the Medical Information Bus standard and Bluetooth, (b) these standards-based components can be realized on microcontroller-driven embedded platforms, and (c) they can be utilized in a plug-and-play manner in point-of-care systems such as those intended for home care. |
