Pervasive Computing in Health Care: Smart Spaces and Enterprise Information Systems

Middleware for pervasive computing is an active area of research that is now starting to mature. Prototypical systems have been developed and used for demonstration applications in a number of domains. However, realistic pervasive environments of the future will need to integrate with enterprise systems, including software, hardware, databases, standards, and life cycle. Designing and implementing “enterprise-strength” pervasive applications today is not an easy task, as we illustrate with a simple case study of a healthcare scenario. We use the case study to draw conclusions about requirements placed on future pervasive systems.