Fog computing and low latency context-aware health monitoring in smart interconnected environments

Abstract

Treatment and management of the increasing complexity in medical conditions experienced by an ageing demographic requires increased use of medical resources and patient management. Effective management may be achieved using autonomic health monitoring systems, a topic much discussed in the literature, however such monitoring has generally been limited to the ‘smart-home’ environment. In this paper we consider extending patient monitoring from only the ‘smart-home’ to a wider ‘smart-environment’ which conflates ‘smart-homes’ with the ‘smart-city’ based on the FOG computing paradigm. FOG is a term created by Cisco systems and is also known as edge computing or ‘fogging’. We introduce a model which incorporates FOG and cloud-based computing for a low latency healthcare monitoring system which enables comprehensive ‘real-time’ monitoring with situational awareness and data analytic solutions. Two illustrative scenarios are presented predicated on the monitoring of patients with dementia, however, the posited approach will generalise to other medical conditions where monitoring is required.