08-09-2014, 03:22 PM
IMPLEMENTATION OF 4G IN TELEMEDICINE
4G IN TELEMEDICINE.docx (Size: 328.25 KB / Downloads: 15)
INTRODUCTION
Since the inception of telemedicine there have been significant advances in wireless communications and network technologies with parallel advances in pervasive and wearable systems. These advances have already made a significant impact on current e-health and telemedical systems. In general terms, m-health can be defined as "mobile computing, medical sensor and communication technologies for health care".
The increased availability, miniaturization, performance, enhanced data rates and the expected convergence of future wireless communication and network technologies around mobile health systems will accelerate the deployment of m-health systems and services within the next decade. These will have a powerful impact on some of the existing health-care services and will reshape some of the mechanisms of existing health-care delivery routes .For example, development of smart intelligent sensors and drug delivery devices, some of them implanted, will allow communication with a personal server in complete mobility. The personal server provides global connectivity to the telemedical server using a wireless personal area network (WPAN).wireless local area network (WLAN), or wireless wide area network (WAN).The evolving mass markets mainly drive developments in these areas for cell phones and portable computing devices and represent an evolution of the previous generation of telemedical systems.
WHAT IS WIRELESS AND BIOMONITORING?
Traditionally, the "wireless concept" is associated closely with bio monitoring". These have been used extensively in the last two decades to perform different data acquisition tasks mostly, without timely integration of data into the medical record; thus, no immediate action occurs if abnormalities are detected. Typical examples are Holter monitors they are routinely used for electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (ECG) monitoring.
Historically, ”wireless monitoring” includes physiological monitoring of parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, blood oximetery, and other physiological signals. Other areas include physical activity monitoring of parameters such as monitoring of movement, fall detection, location tracking, gastrointestinal telemetry, and other physical activities. The benefits of the wireless technology have been illustrated in a number of different examples and applications.
Today with wireless technology, patient records could be accessed by healthcare professionals from any given location by connection to the institution’s information system. Physician access to patient history, laboratory results. Pharmaceutical data, insurance information, and medical resources would be enhanced by mobile technology, there by improving the quality of patient care. Handheld devices can also be used in home health care, for example, to fight diabetes through effective monitoring.
EMERGING m-HEALTH TECHNOLOGY
The evolution of current 3G wireless communication and mobile network technologies will be the major driving force for future developments in m-Health systems. 3G wireless technologies represent the convergence of various second generation wireless systems. One of the most important aspects of 3G technology is its ability to unify existing cellular standards, such as code-division multiple-access, global system for mobile communications (GSM), and time-division multiple-access, under one umbrella.
Fig.1. shows the general architecture of a UMTS network. The detailed description on these systems can be found in several recent UMTS texts. So only a brief description of the basic architecture is presented here for completeness. In general the UMTS architecture is divided into three major parts-the air interface, the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), and the core network. The latest commercial release of this system is R5.The Radio Network Controller(RNC)can be considered to be roughly equivalent of the base station controller in GSM and the Node Bs equate approximately to the GSM base stations(Base transceiver stations).
The RNCs and the base stations are collectively known as the UTRAN. From the UTRAN to the core, the network is divided into packet and circuit switched parts, the interface between the radio access and the core network(lu)being really two air interfaces: Iu(PS-Packet Switch) and Iu(CS-Circuit Switched).Packet traffic is concentrated in a new switching element-the serving GPRS Support Node(SGSN).The boundary of the UMTS core network for packets is Gateway GPRS Support Node(GGSN),which is very much like a normal internet
SENSORS FOR m-HEALTH SYSTEMS
With the aid of medical sensor technologies-Health can can offer health-care services far beyond what the traditional telemedical systems(es.,teleconsultation and teleconference) can possibly provide. A proper integration of medical services would allow physicians to diagnose, monitor and treat patients remotely without compromising standards of care.
Advances in new materials and signals processing research would enable the design of smart medical sensors to realize the real-time data recording and processing of multiphysiological signals. Many different kinds of medical sensors are now available on the marker ranging from convectional sensors based on piezo-electrical materials for pressure measurement to infrared sensors for body temperature estimation and optoelectronic sensor monitoring SpO2, heart rate. HRV and blood pressure.
The rapid development in microelectronics and digital wireless technology makes it now possible to realize wireless medical sensors with networking capability to facilitate the joint processing of spatially and temporally collected physiology information from different parts of the body and the external works greatly enhance the ability of physicians to timely examine and treat complex biological systems at a distance effectively reduce the infrastructure cost at the hospital side and the travel expense at the patent end. M-Health equipped with medical sensors has the potential to transform the way health care is currently provided miniaturization of sensors.
MINIATURIZATION OF SENSORS
As sensor and computing technologies continue to evolve, their integration into wearable medical devices for the monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses will become commonplace .To monitor human health constantly without disturbing users’ normal daily activities, the wearable sensors and devices for physiological data collection n should be designed to be so small that they will not affect the appearance and function of the user in which they are embedded .Miniature biomedical sensors and devices can also be embodied in or integrated with other wearable carriers (such as a finger ring),as shown in fig 2.
This concept is being implemented in a project concerned with wearable intelligent sensors and system for E-medicine (WISSE) with a body area network (BAN) forming the communication infrastructure. Operation of WISSIE should be user-friendly and require very little prior training, knowledge and skills.
Recent advances in microfabrication, intelligent of physical sensors and new sensing and stimulation technologies, have the potential to revolutionize
FEATURES OF WBAN
WBAN allows seamless system integration of various sensors. At the same time, small range (1-2 m) reduces power consumption requirements, which directly reduces battery size and extends battery life. The same approach could be applied to the communication system of the personal server. Internet connectivity of the personal server requires significant power in the order of watts. Employing mobile gateways or using mesh network of peer nodes to reach gateway with the internet access could achieve reduced power consumption
NEXT GENERATION M-HEALTH SYSTEMS
It is evident that the advances in m-health Technologies are underpinning organizations and the delivery of health-care. These advances are giving rise to a range of reforms in the way in which some health-care services are currently delivered. In the near future, the increasing medical data traffic and demand from different clinical applications and mobile medical scenarios will be compatible with the data rates of current 3G systems.
Specifically, in a society penetrated by 3G systems, home medical care and remote diagnosis will become common, check up by specialist and prescription of drugs will be enabled at home and in under populated areas based on high resolution image transmission technologies and remote surgery, and virtual hospitals with no resident doctors will be realized. Preventive medical care will
CURRENT ORGANIZATION + NEW TECHNOLOGY=EXPENSIVE CURRENT ORGANIZATION
To change this equation to one that delivers also benefits requires that the whole system of care process roles and responsibilities of team members,. organizations and structures. Including technology is scmtinized in order to find where changes can be made. ways must be innovated to organize work and to deliver services. This includes the citizen/patient as an active participant together with the health-care team of specialized professional’s I-37T”.
Hence the deployment of these new generation mobile and wireless technologies will face challenges in dimensions that can be named as technological., economical and social.
CONCLUSION
In this paper we have seen the telemedicine employing 3G, which has disadvantages like slow switching speed and data transfer. It takes more times to reach from source to destination and vice versa. If these drawbacks are eliminated in future telemedicine will play a vital role in human life. Drawbacks of the current telemedicine systems can be eliminated by the use of 4G communication networks