title: A medical-grade wireless architecture for remote electrocardiography.
abstract: In telecardiology, electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from a patient are acquired by sensors and transmitted in real time to medical personnel across a wireless network. The use of IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs (WLANs), which are already deployed in many hospitals, can provide ubiquitous connectivity and thus allow cardiology patients greater mobility. However, engineering issues, including the error-prone nature of wireless channels and the unpredictable delay and jitter due to the nondeterministic nature of access to the wireless medium, need to be addressed before telecardiology can be safely realized. We propose a medical-grade WLAN architecture for remote ECG monitoring, which employs the point-coordination function (PCF) for medium access control and Reed-Solomon coding for error control. Realistic simulations with uncompressed two-lead ECG data from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database demonstrate reliable wireless ECG monitoring; the reliability of ECG transmission exceeds 99.99% with the initial buffering delay of only 2.4 s.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea. ktkang@hanyang.ac.kr
authors.forename: Kyungtae
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Kyung-Joon
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Jae-Jin
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Chang-Hwan
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Lui
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sha
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D015716:Electrocardiography, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D004582:Electronics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods*; D013686:Telemetry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D059015:Wireless Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*