A SOAP-based system for the provision of e-services

This paper describes an open-architecture system for the provision of e-services to home residents, consisting of healthcare, safety and security services. The proposed system exploits the open Internet standards and is based on the hub-and-spoke connection model between home users and service providers, through an intermediate entity called service aggregator. Health status of each residential user, together with safety and security parameters are monitored and stored locally in each user’s home system. Periodically, the measured values are transmitted and stored at the corresponding service providers’ databases. Furthermore, each measured value is checked for the detection of alarms, which initiates notification transmissions to specific users and/or service providers. The access rights to monitor/control the home system(s), retrieve historical data and configure operation parameters are granted to several types of users based on their authorization level. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.