Next Generation Telemedicine Service Provision in the Home Healthcare Sector

A joint project between KTH and Huddinge University Hospital

André Alander, Andreas Larsson,Dan Kopparhed,

Pascal Laue, Pawel Merdi,

Shahidur Rahman

Communication Systems Design

2g1712 (16 credits)2g1713 (20 credits)

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Presentation Overview Background

Goals

Video

Workflow

Project Tasks

Benefits

Prototype Model

Implementation Approaches

Advantages of MQ Approach

Future Work

Summary & Conclusions

Questions

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Background

Large increase in number of biomedical equipment at patients’ homes

Department of Biomedical Engineering (MTA) at Huddinge University Hospital

Telemedicine is expected to grow rapidly in the nearest future

Biomedical equipment enables patients to stay home

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Goals

Main goals

• Analyze potential benefits involved when deploying the platform

• Design and implement a platform for transfer of data from patients to the hospital

Optional goals

• Implement applications on the platform

• Implement teleconferencing between patients and hospital

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Video

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Other Biomedical Products

AutoCPAP Pulseoximeter

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Current System

• Patients discover problems

• Difficult to get/give exact information from/to patient

• Solution often requires biomedical engineer to visit patient

Workflow

Future System

• Problems and solutions are identified remotely at the hospital

• Patients may solve the problems through instructions

• Visits to patients may not be necessary

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Project TasksProject TasksProject plan

Cost and Benefit Analysis (CBA)

Business Analysis (BA)

System Architecture Design (SAD)

Building prototype

Testing

Final report

System Design

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BenefitsBenefits

Non Commercial Benefits• High quality support for Patients

• Improved efficiency of the work of the staff

• Knowledge of new telemedicine technology

Commercial Benefits• Marginal benefit if the number of patients is low

• Large benefit if the number of patients is high

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Prototype Model

Internet

Patient HomeHuddinge

University Hospital

Database

Server

Message Queue

PCBiomedical

Product

GraphicalUser Interface

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Implementation Approaches

Java Application Approach (custom solution)

• Not scalable, Time consuming

• Inefficient way of data transmission

Information Bus Approach (IBM WebSphere MQ)

• Guaranteed delivery and prevention of duplicates

• Forwarding ability at a later time

Database Oriented Approach (oracle 9i)

• Provides Application Server and Advanced Queuing facilities

• Message propagation to a specified Queue

• Guaranteed delivery and exception handling

• Provides prioritizing between messages among others

Transmission of data

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Advantages of MQ Approach

• Technology already familiar to the staff of the Hospital

• Products already licensed and ready for use

• Existing commercial components can be used

• Easier programming

• Easier code testing

Very scalable

Easy to maintain

Saves time and money

Future-proof approach Lower maintenance costs

• Can handle thousands of clients

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Future Work

1. Investigate the use of other Message Queue systems

2. Extend with full user interfaces on both client and server side

3. Implement the platform on a residential gateway or other suitable hardware

4. Implement teleconferencing between patients and the hospital

5. Investigate technology for redundancy in communication and data storage

6. Test the platform with real patients

7. Evaluate the test and the patients’ perception of it

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Summary & Conclusions

Telemedicine expansion has just begun…

Concept of the designed platform is proved

Telemedicine gives benefits and save money

• Large cost savings when system used in large scale

Interesting future opportunities to extend the system

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Questions

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The End