Opportunistic medical monitoring using bluetooth P2P networks

Remote medical monitoring with medical sensors and wireless communications has recently gained attention for the potential savings and improved quality in patient health-care. Currently, many mobile wireless medical infrastructures connect to the Internet in a point-to-point fashion, such as the cellular network. However, our research investigates new models for remote patient care that exploit P2P networking among patients and healthcare providers (nurses, doctors, emergency personnel). In this paper, we identify several medical applications based on P2P health networking focusing on two specific scenarios where nurses and patients are both equipped with Bluetooth devices. Nurses opportunistically collect, share and upload data in a P2P fashion. During an emergency, the nearest nurse is alerted via Bluetooth enhanced inquiry response mechanism. The simulation and test-bed experimentation demonstrate that Bluetooth P2P networking is both feasible and cost-effective in remote medical monitoring.