Cost Effective IoT-based Remote Healthcare Monitoring System for Developing Countries

There is a critical need for the remote monitoring of patients, especially given the current pandemic situation. This is ever more acute in developing nations, where access to healthcare is reliant on already stretched medical services. Despite this, the traditional mode of operation remains Face-to-Face (F2F), even for routine follow-up examinations. The work herein details an Internet-of-Things (IoT) based prototype that allows remote monitoring of patients in a cost-effective way. The prototype was designed to be employed in environments where resources are limited. It is particularly useful in the monitoring of patients that require constant surveillance but not necessarily immediate attention, such as the elderly or those recovering from medical procedures. A combination of sensors (including an LM35 for body temperatures) is connected to an Arduino UNO main controller board. Sensed data is processed both on-site and sent to a cloud-based system comprising of both a database and a web-application. Alerts are sent at the local and cloud levels should readings indicate potential health issues, with medical professionals able to access patient data easily. In this way, patients can be safely monitored remotely without the need for physically present caregivers, and thus also decrease the burden on a nation’s overly strained medical personnel.