Software agent based approach towards tele-electrocardiography

TeIemedicine involves the integration of information, telecommunications, human-machine and healthcare technologies. One of the aspects of telecardiology, known as tele-electrocardiography, deploys electrocardiography (ECG) machines to transmit ECGs over networks. Tele-electrocardiography diagnosis and ECG interpretation is simple, reliable and cost-effective. As different parts of this tele-electrocardiography system work on different computing environments, software interoperability is a major issue. Software agent technology supports a heterogeneous computing environment. As this technology reacts dynamically to adverse conditions, it is suitable for the development of fault-tolerant distributed systems. Additionally, agent technology represents the intentions, desires and resources of the participants - so it can be effectively used in online healthcare applications. The features of software agent technology are potentially suitable for the development of interoperable telemedicine systems. This paper presents a software agent-based interoperable scheme for tele-electrocardiography applications.