9th International Conference on Body Area Networks

Research Article

Continuous, Real-Time, Tele-monitoring of Patients with Chronic Heart-Failure - Lessons Learned From a Pilot Study

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.bodynets.2014.257036,
        author={Daniel Aranki and Gregorij Kurillo and Posu Yan and David Liebovitz and Ruzena Bajcsy},
        title={Continuous, Real-Time, Tele-monitoring of Patients with Chronic Heart-Failure - Lessons Learned From a Pilot Study},
        proceedings={9th International Conference on Body Area Networks},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={BODYNETS},
        year={2014},
        month={11},
        keywords={tele-monitoring chf heart-failure mhealth mobile-health medical intervention activity monitoring energy expenditure},
        doi={10.4108/icst.bodynets.2014.257036}
    }
    
  • Daniel Aranki
    Gregorij Kurillo
    Posu Yan
    David Liebovitz
    Ruzena Bajcsy
    Year: 2014
    Continuous, Real-Time, Tele-monitoring of Patients with Chronic Heart-Failure - Lessons Learned From a Pilot Study
    BODYNETS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.4108/icst.bodynets.2014.257036
Daniel Aranki1,*, Gregorij Kurillo1, Posu Yan2, David Liebovitz3, Ruzena Bajcsy1
  • 1: University of California, Berkeley
  • 2: -
  • 3: Feinberg School of Medicine
*Contact email: daranki@cs.berkeley.edu

Abstract

We present a smartphone-based system for remote real-time tele-monitoring of physical activity in patients with chronic heart-failure (CHF). We recently completed a pilot study with 15 subjects to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed monitoring in the real world and examine its requirements, privacy implications, usability, and other challenges encountered by the participants and healthcare providers. Our tele-monitoring system was designed to asses patient activity via minute-by-minute energy expenditure (EE) estimated from accelerometry. In addition, we tracked relative user location via global positioning system (GPS) to track outdoors activity and measure walking distance. The system also administered daily-surveys to inquire about vital signs and general cardiovascular symptoms. The collected data were securely transmitted to a central server where they were analyzed in real time and were accessible to the study medical staff to assess patients' health status and provide medical intervention if needed. Although the system was designed for tele-monitoring individuals with CHF, the challenges, privacy considerations, and lessons learned from this pilot study apply to other chronic health conditions that would benefit from continuous monitoring through mobile-health (mHealth) technologies, such as diabetes and hypertension.