Java framework for dialysis monitoring using a distributed network architecture

Abstract

Monitoring of dialysis patients is a typical scenario for multi-sensor systems, measuring vital parameters like heart rate or blood pressure. The main issue is to display and monitor the patients' vital parameters anytime and anywhere, using so-called pervasive environments. The vital parameters shall be available at the remote devices and at a central monitoring station, e.g. for targeted alerting and simultaneous monitoring of all patients from a central location. The proposed system contains different sensors to measure vital parameters, cell phones as remote devices and a web application as central monitor. A web server is implemented to handle the HTTP requests and responses from cell phones and web application. On the cell phone, the Android platform is used to implement the functionality for sensor and network communication interfaces using the integrated WLAN and classic Bluetooth protocols. The hierarchical architecture of the monitoring network allows the extension of the system by additional patients, wearing additional sensors. The functionality of the monitoring system is validated in an exemplary use case for two patients showing valuable results in terms of response time and availability.