J2ME and smart phones as platform for a Bluetooth Body Area Network for Patient-telemonitoring

A prototype of a system based on a Bluetooth body area network (BAN) for continuous and wireless telemonitoring of patients' biosignals is presented. Smart phones and Java (J2ME) have been selected as platform to build a central node in patients' BAN. A midlet running in the smart phone compiles information about patient's location and health status. The midlet encrypts and retransmits it to the server through 802.11 or GPRS/UMTS. Besides when an alerting condition is detected, the midlet generates a MMS and a SMS to be sent to patients' relatives and to physician, respectively. Additionally, the system provides to physicians the possibility of configuring BAN's parameters remotely, from a PC or even a smart phone.