A Flexible and Pervasive IoT-Based Healthcare Platform for Physiological and Environmental Parameters Monitoring

The concentration in the new era of healthcare is the medical Internet of Things (IoT) according to preventive and prediction (p(2)Health). In large scale and general perspective, the effective parameters from behavioral, ambient, and physiological domains as the most influencing fields of interest in healthcare must be monitored. In personalized healthcare monitoring, wearables are playing an important role in terms of data measurement and collection. We aim at creating a configurable and adaptable platform for comprehensive parameters monitoring, according to the convenient mode of wearability. Hence, we develop an innovative wrist-worn prototype for ambient monitoring and a flexible IoT gateway. The prototype measures the most critical parameters from an ambient domain. In this platform, via IoT gateway as an intermediate hub between the wearables and the IoT server, bidirectional communication between the end user and medics is established in real time. In addition, the physician as the real-time observer of patients are given the possibility to set up the required parameters for measurement through the IoT gateway and activate/deactivate the sensors on the wearables. Therefore, depending on the target investigation, status of patients, requirements, and demands, medics can determine the setup parameters for measurement. Thus, the application of this platform is not limited to specific groups, but widely may be applied whether in daily routine or medical research investigation. Under the flexible IoT gateway, the new wearables can readily be integrated and synchronized into the platform. The users are not restricted to select only one specific product but there are alternatives as well. To support the solution, experimental results are provided.