Extending near field communications to enable continuous data transmission in clinical environments

Abstract

There are several communication technologies that make feasible the integration of things into Internet. NFC, Bluetooth, WiFi Low Power and 6LoWPAN are some of the most extended technologies, which are making possible the wireless transmission for sensor networks communication and integrate this networks with the Internet, in order to reach an Internet of Things (IoT). These networks allow us collect a lot of information process and understand it and act, according to the situation required, effectively. Our research work is focused for the integration of NFC to control the heart status of a patient continuously. This work analyzes the capabilities from NFC to make feasible the integration of continuous data transmission. The main goal of this continuous data transmission is enable a new generation of mobile health tools that make feasible to analyze process and make a preliminary diagnosis of the state of a patient's heart anytime/anywhere. For this purpose, it is presented how an electrocardiogram clinical device is integrated with a mobile phone enabled with NFC. This is evaluated the performance with the native communication model from the sensor concluding that it is necessary some preprocessing to work properly in real time. For that reason, it is also proposed, evaluated and prototyped a preprocessing module to solve the mentioned communication challenges for NFC in clinical environments. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.