Smart information technology for universal healthcare

Abstract

Abstract Information technology (IT) has evolved tremendously in the recent past. All areas of human life are being governed by technology-driven, information-related activities. Healthcare is one of the important domains that has been greatly influenced by the application and usage of IT. This chapter discusses the advances in IT-related healthcare technologies and reviews the state-of-the-art network architecture, platforms, and applications in IT-based healthcare solutions. Wireless sensor networks are among the key research areas currently and their applications in the healthcare industry are continuously improving the standard of life. This chapter focuses on wearable and implantable body area network systems used to collect real-time data for patient monitoring. This chapter illustrates the role of body sensor networks in medicine and healthcare applications, which involves collecting patient information, generating databases, connecting payment gateways for insurance providers, along with managing cadaver systems, including legal formalities, within a single proposed platform. The chapter covers the state-of-the-art technology for an unobtrusive, scalable, and energy efficient system, to provide comprehensive analysis of the benefits of the proposed system. The proposed system uses implantable wireless body sensors for transmission of information from the body part to a main station through the wireless sensors. The data is accumulated and transmitted to the main system or an internet application through a wireless sensor network (WSN) managed by software defined network (SDN) technology, where this data is controlled through a software-based application of networking. The proposed system is integrated with wearable devices, wearable body area network (WBAN), near field communication (NFC), narrow band internet of things (NBIoT), and long-range low-power wireless platform (LoRa) integrated on a single monitoring system through a customized user interface.