Supporting the developers of context-aware mobile telemedicine applications

Abstract

Telemedicine, which is defined as providing healthcare and sharing of medical knowledge over distance using telecommunication means, is a promising approach to improve and enhance the healthcare provisioning process. However, only recently, technology has evolved (i.e. miniaturization of high power mobile devices that can use high bandwidth mobile communication mechanisms) such that feasible advanced telemedicine applications can be developed. Current telemedicine systems offer proprietary solutions that are used in specific disease domains. For the acceptation, rapid development and introduction of novel and advanced telemedicine applications, there is a need for architectural mechanisms that supports developers in rapidly developing such telemedicine applications. The research discussed in this paper, focuses on the development of such mechanisms. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.