A flexible home gateway system for telecare of patients affected by chronic heart failure

Among chronic disease, Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) is recently attracting the attention of physicians and administrators, as it represents one of the most frequent cause of hospitalization, with a consequent considerable impact on patient quality of life and healthcare costs. This paper presents an integrated ICT solution to improve the management of CHF patients through the monitoring of vital signs at patient home. After a brief introduction of the overall system requirements and architecture, the paper will focus on the flexible home gateway. This represents the central node of the system, being responsible of data flow from the sensors to the server and the hospital information system and representing also the home patient's interface. Hardware/Software architecture and implementation trade-offs will be presented. Home Gateway prototype features will be described and compared with respect to state-of-the-art solutions.