In addition, smartphones technology comprises various services such as location tracking, short message service, and access of WLAN/GPRS/3G which provides ubiquitous connectivity. Cell phone subscription is increasing rapidly and might reach the level of 8.5 billion by the end of 2016 with 70% of smartphone users from developing countries. It should be noted that over 94% of the world population, that is, 6.8 billion people, are the subscribers of cell phone and about 2.7 billion subscribers are using Internet.
The ubiquitous social connectivity can be used in telemedicine for remote monitoring and offsite diagnoses. The treatment of such chronic diseases requires continuous and long term monitoring to control threat. According to WHO, it has been estimated that heart disease rate might increase to 23.3% worldwide by the year 2030. Heart diseases have become one of the leading causes of human fatalities around the world for instance, approximately 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese as obesity can lead to adverse metabolic effects on blood pressure and cholesterol which ultimately increases the risks of coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, diabetes mellitus, and a number of common cancers. The most promising application is in real-time monitoring of chronic illnesses such as cardiopulmonary disease, asthma, and heart failure in patients located far from the medical care facilities through wireless monitoring systems. Īccording to existing medical surveys, telemedicine has been adopted to take care of the patients with cardiac diseases, diabetes, hypotension, hypertension, hyperthermia, and hypothermia. In the larger perspective, telemedicine can be of two types: (1) live communication type, where the presence of the doctor and patient is necessary with additional requirements of high bandwidth and good data speed, and (2) store and forward type, which requires acquisition of medical parameters such as vital signs, images, videos, and transmission of patients data to concerned specialist in hospital. The integration of mobile communications with wearable sensors has facilitated the shift of healthcare services from clinic-centric to patient-centric and is termed as “Telemedicine” in the literature. Introductionĭuring the recent decade, rapid advancements in healthcare services and low cost wireless communication have greatly assisted in coping with the problem of fewer medical facilities. In addition, the developed system is equipped to generate warning messages to the doctor and patient under critical circumstances. The analyses showed that the proposed system is convenient and reliable and ensures data security at low cost. The performance analysis shows that the proposed system is reliable and helpful due to high speed.
The developed monitoring system is then evaluated for 40 individuals (aged between 18 and 66 years) using wearable sensors while holding an Android device (i.e., smartphone under supervision of the experts). The main purpose of this study is to facilitate the remote cardiac patients in getting latest healthcare services which might not be possible otherwise due to low doctor-to-patient ratio. The system is conceptualized to provide an interface between the doctor and the patients for two-way communication. In this paper, a real-time heart monitoring system is developed considering the cost, ease of application, accuracy, and data security. The rapid growth in technology has remarkably enhanced the scope of remote health monitoring systems. These systems are based on advanced wireless and wearable sensor technologies. Online telemedicine systems are useful due to the possibility of timely and efficient healthcare services.