Integrating Context Information in a Mobile Environment using the eSana Framework

Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in everyday’s life, their popularity and place independence are reasons for using these devices in different areas. One such area is electronic health, where patients can install small applications on their mobile devices that help or guide them in certain situations. The eSana framework offers a set of tools and approaches that allow the transmission of discrete physiological values electronically in order to evaluate them by medical experts. This paper presents an extension to this framework that includes the use of contextual information to improve eSana. The use case “Find nearby pharmacy” will illustrate a simple application that uses context information to guide the patient to the best pharmacy within his range. A second use case will enrich the existing idea of transmitting physiological parameters with context information. 1 Mobile devices in eHealth A very large percentage of the European population owns a mobile phone. Their ubiquity, connectivity and increasing features are reasons for using them in the electronic health sector. A number of researchers have worked on the idea of assigning mobile devices to patients. Furthermore, the survey presented in [WHO06] interprets the high demand of non-OECD countries for telemedicine and the use of a remote medical expertise to improve the available health care resources in less developed areas. When the mobile device is used to transmit physiological parameters, it is possible to distinguish between the following three domains: 1. Mobile devices are used to help the patient by providing information. 2. Mobile devices are used to transmit physiological parameters. 3. Mobile devices are used to alert patients or medical professionals when certain physiological parameters become critical.