NetSE: Small: Collaborative Research: The Health Guardian- A Gateway to Networked Wellness

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The Health Guardian project provides medical care through Wireless Health: remote monitoring, wearable body area sensors and wireless communications. The goal is to promote independent living by improving home patient care quality (and reduce costs) while enabling the care of mobile individuals. Today, doctors and nurses manually record and track patients? status. This manual process cannot guarantee accuracy and efficiency in the face of increasing complexity of sensed data and measurement procedures. However, remote, automated monitoring has become technically feasible. This program introduces a BodyLAN interconnecting body sensors to a data collection gateway, the ?Health Guardian?. In turn, the Health Guardian connects to external networks to propagate the data for further processing. Leveraging the growing popularity of P2P personal networks, this project enables new patient care models based on P2P networking among patients and care providers. Broader Impact: Wireless health will reach into homes, workplace environments and rural communities. The foundation for emerging new applications and business opportunities that range from networking of individuals interacting in health, wellness and safety to rehabilitation and disease management of clinical patients. On the education front, creation of cross cutting project-oriented undergraduate and graduate courses. Intellectual merits: Innovative research in delay tolerant, reliable networking between Body LAN, Guardian and Internet overcoming intermittent wireless connectivity; cooperation among peers to share critical resources and discover ?useful? neighbors with the help of Social Network techniques; concept validation via clinical trials.