An architecture for using commodity devices and smart phones in health systems

The potential of patient-centred care and a connected eHealth ecosystem can be developed through socially responsible innovative architectures. The purpose of this paper is to define key innovation needs. This is achieved through conceptual development of an architecture for common information spaces with emergent end-user applications by supporting intelligent processing of measurements, data and services at the Internet of Things (IoT) integration level. The scope is conceptual definition, and results include descriptions of social, legal and ethical requirements, an architecture, services and connectivity infrastructures for consumer-oriented healthcare systems linking co-existing healthcare systems and consumer devices. We conclude with recommendations based on an analysis of research challenges related to how to process the data securely and anonymously and how to interconnect participants and services with different standards and interaction protocols, and devices with heterogeneous hardware and software configurations.

I. Introduction

Europe has the second highest smart phone penetration in the world ¹

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Worldwide-Smartphone-Usage-Grow-25-2014/1010920

, and for many European citizens, this creates opportunities to interact with public services and each other in new ways. An emerging big trend ²

http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/wearable-technology-2015-2025-technologies-markets-forecasts-000427.asp

in portable consumer electronics is wearables ³

http://www.wearable-technologies.com/category/topics/healthcarewellness/

, and there are already abundance of devices available to monitor a person's bio-data and daily activities. However, the existing IoT solutions for healthcare are often vertically-oriented closed systems, making it impossible to produce consumer-oriented applications to generate a strong cooperation between the plethora of consumer devices like smart phones and wearables, medical devices, patient monitoring systems, hospital information software, and other external services.