Implementation methodology for interoperable personal health devices with low-voltage low-power constraints

IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed. 2011 May;15(3):398-408. doi: 10.1109/TITB.2011.2134861.

Abstract

Traditionally, e-Health solutions were located at the point of care (PoC), while the new ubiquitous user-centered paradigm draws on standard-based personal health devices (PHDs). Such devices place strict constraints on computation and battery efficiency that encouraged the International Organization for Standardization/IEEE11073 (X73) standard for medical devices to evolve from X73PoC to X73PHD. In this context, low-voltage low-power (LV-LP) technologies meet the restrictions of X73PHD-compliant devices. Since X73PHD does not approach the software architecture, the accomplishment of an efficient design falls directly on the software developer. Therefore, computational and battery performance of such LV-LP-constrained devices can even be outperformed through an efficient X73PHD implementation design. In this context, this paper proposes a new methodology to implement X73PHD into microcontroller-based platforms with LV-LP constraints. Such implementation methodology has been developed through a patterns-based approach and applied to a number of X73PHD-compliant agents (including weighing scale, blood pressure monitor, and thermometer specializations) and microprocessor architectures (8, 16, and 32 bits) as a proof of concept. As a reference, the results obtained in the weighing scale guarantee all features of X73PHD running over a microcontroller architecture based on ARM7TDMI requiring only 168 B of RAM and 2546 B of flash memory.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Electronics, Medical / instrumentation*
  • Electronics, Medical / standards
  • Home Care Services
  • Humans
  • Medical Informatics
  • Medical Informatics Applications*
  • Microcomputers
  • Monitoring, Ambulatory / instrumentation*
  • Monitoring, Ambulatory / standards
  • Point-of-Care Systems
  • Precision Medicine
  • Telemedicine / instrumentation*
  • Telemedicine / standards