Reliable Data Collection from Mobile Users for Real-Time Clinical Monitoring

Real-time patient monitoring is critical to early detection of clinical patient deterioration in general hospital wards. A key challenge in such applications is to reliably deliver sensor data from mobile patients. We present an empirical analysis on the reliability of data collection from wireless pulse oximeters attached to users. We observe that most packet loss occur from mobile users to their first-hop relays. Based on this insight we developed the Dynamic Relay Association Protocol (DRAP), a simple and effective mechanism for dynamically discovering the right relays for wireless sensors attached to mobile users. DRAP enables highly reliable data collection from mobile users without requiring any change to complex routing protocols. We have implemented DRAP on the TinyOS platform and a prototype clinical monitoring system. Empirical evaluation showed DRAP delivered at least 96% of pulse oximetry data from multiple users, while maintaining a radio duty cycle below 2.8% and reducing the RAM footprint by 65% when compared to CTP. Our results demonstrates the feasibility and efficacy of wireless sensor network technology for real-time clinical monitoring. Type of Report: Other Department of Computer Science & Engineering Washington University in St. Louis Campus Box 1045 St. Louis, MO 63130 ph: (314) 935-6160 Reliable Data Collection from Mobile Users for Real-Time Clinical Monitoring Octav Chipara1, Christopher Brooks1, Sangeeta Bhattacharya1, Chenyang Lu1, Roger Chamberlain1, Gruia-Catalin Roman1, Thomas C. Bailey2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis Washington University School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis