Design considerations and implementation of a cost-effective, portable remote monitoring unit using 3G wireless data networks

This paper describes the design and implementation of a light-weight, autonomous, patient-centric, portable medical unit that allows for anytime/anywhere monitoring and can find use in many monitoring scenarios like home-care, hospital wards, emergency help and disaster relief. The proposed unit called “ TelePatient” achieves portability by exploiting a PDA and allows mobility through the use of cellular technology, enabling complete ubiquity. The design is based on open standards and is cost-effective. We incorporate transcoding software to fit data to limited bandwidth, as well as conserve energy on the power constrained PDA. We validate our design over real network 3G CDMA conditions and also test its use over WLAN802.11b, which can together cover a number of Telemedicine scenarios.