Development of a Patient Monitoring System for Hospital Wards Employing Zigbee Technology and CAN Protocol

Patient monitoring is the most important routine in hospitals. Patient Monitoring System (PMS) provides continuous presentation and interpretation of the patient’s vital signs. However in a hospital wards scenario, standard patient monitoring requires a nurse to manually and periodically record the patient’s vital signs. This paper presents the development of an automated PMS for hospital wards that integrates Zigbee Technology and CAN protocol. The system comprises two sections: the wireless section is the wearable device and the coordinator node while the wired section is the coordinator node connected to the base station node thru the CAN bus and a Central Monitoring Station (CMS) based on LabVIEW software. The key components of the wearable device are the GY-MAX30100 and Fever Click MAX30205. These development boards have achieved the acceptable limits in measuring vital signs such as heart rate (HR), oxygen saturation (SpO2) and body temperature in terms of relative error rate (RER) when compared to Pulse Oximeter MD300C1 and Digital Thermometer DT-111A that are both CE marked medical device. The evaluation of the wearable device and the coordinator node in sending and receiving vital signs data have shown a 100% reliability even in a line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) condition for a distance of up to 40 meters. The average response time of the CMS in receiving data is 1.3 seconds and has detection for abnormal vital signs. The final simulation tested with four volunteers had successfully revealed an effective and a working system that can work in a multi-patient architecture.