Sensor-enhanced health information system architectures for home and telecare: concept and prototype

Demographic trends towards an aging society motivate the search for alternative health care paradigms. Information technology driven home-care and telecare are popular concepts, and a lot of projects resulted in corresponding systems. Thus the question arises what implications for health information system (HIS) architectures emerge and how sensor technology as a core technology for home and telecare can systematically be integrated into HIS architectures. Based on respective literature and previous experience in home and telecare projects basic components and services of a sensor-enhanced HIS are identified and exemplified by a research prototype of a sensor enhanced telematics platform. The research prototype makes intensive use of international standards (e.g. HL7 CDA and the Arden syntax). The results of first evaluations of the prototype system in a laboratory environment and in the context of telemedical surveillance of home exercises in case of cardio-vascular diseases are described. First evaluations demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. Further work is needed towards ensuring ad hoc connectivity of sensor systems and further elaborating cascaded sensor data analysis.