Personal eMonitors is a project dedicated to the acquisition, analysis and processing of medical data.
Developed for the specific case of individuals with coronary heart disease, arrhythmia and for patients undergoing invasive cardiac surgery, it can also be easily adapted to remote monitoring of other conditions.
GFM-Net developed the software components of the mobile platform for the acquisition of a person's vital parameters, analysis and processing of medical data. The components are completely wireless and can be scaled and customized to the patient's needs.
At the heart of Personal eMonitors is the Smart Patch: a new easily wearable device, wirelessly connected to a portable hub, that was created in partnership with Frogdesign and Flextronics together with Politecnico di Milano.
The research program was co-funded by the Lombardy Region and the European Commission. It was precisely the multidisciplinary and multiprofessional nature of the partners - ranging from interaction design, software development, mathematics and ICT architecture - that enriched the project and made it successful.

How the system works

The current architecture of Personal eMonitors consists of the following components:

• Smart Patch: a wireless medical device equipped with sensors, capable of collecting and transmitting ECG data;
• Device Node: a Radio Frequency device that receives and stores data from the Smart Patch and forwards it to the Health Agent;
• Blood Pressure Monitor and Saturimeter: wireless devices that can communicate blood pressure and blood oxygen levels directly to the Health Agent via a Bluetooth connection;
• Health Agent: a portable hub containing an application that can receive, analyze, and temporarily store data from the Device Node and other medical devices and forward it to the Health Center;
• Health Center: an independent hub, composed of trained staff and medical professionals, that receives and stores data in a dedicated database. Other professionals can access the data via a completely secure web or smartphone interface.

Patient vitals collected through the devices are monitored in real time by Health Center operators, while alarms can be calibrated for each individual through algorithms easily applied through the Center's web platform.

The applications of the system

In the cardiology field, Personal eMonitors can effectively perform multiple functions, becoming as needed:

• A prediagnosis tool for family physicians, significantly reducing ER admissions;
• A diagnostic tool for hard-to-detect symptoms;
• A monitoring system for patients awaiting surgery;
• A wearable and totally wireless telemetry system;
• A wearable and totally wireless telemetry system;
• A remote monitoring system for the rehabilitation phase following an acute cardiac event or surgery, enabling early discharge of the patient and subsequent reduction in hospitalization costs;
• A remote monitoring system for patients during a drug therapy change;
• A remote monitoring system for patients during a drug therapy change;
• A tool used by paramedics on ambulances for rapid data acquisition and real-time transfer to the emergency department.

Future perspectives

Personal eMonitors represent a solid step toward a new generation of telemedicine platforms composed of discrete, fully wireless devices coupled with open source communication protocols. In the future, Personal eMonitors could be applied for telehealth, remote health care, continuous medical monitoring and mobile medical platforms working in real time. These implementations will undoubtedly improve patients' quality of life and make medical facilities more up-to-date and efficient.