Intuitive and Touch Based Interface for ECG Acquisition Using Mobile Phones Jürgen Morak, Hannes Kumpusch, Dieter Hayn Günter Schreier, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH Information Management & ehealth Graz - Hall in Tirol - Wien juergen.morak.fl@ait.ac.at
Introduction Touch based data acquisition Advantages of NFC based telemonitoring NFC based Bluetooth pairing Prototype for touch based ECG acquisition Results Conclusion Outlook 2
Patient terminal based on mobile phones and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology Nokia 6131 NFC or Nokia 6212 classic (commercially available mobile phones) Short range (5 cm) wireless communication technology Bring-in-Touch - paradigm Handled by J2ME software application reading contactless chip cards for authentication and identification exchange dynamic content with active NFC-module (i.e. read values from meter) touching RFID tags as user interface 3
Solution for intuitive data acquisition Touch ID card for identification launches application authenticates patient Touch meter reads recent measured value automatically Touch tag board with icons to confirm intake of up to 4 meds answer via YES, MORE, LESS, NO touch smiley to answer about well being 4
Advantages of using NFC Intuitive handling easy-to-use and easy-to-learn single page figure-based user manual Different kinds of data user IDs (multi-user) measurement values from meters further information Minimal effort on device management and maintenance inbuilt device management due to RFID no need for pairing -> uncomplicated device replacement 5
but lacks in terms of handling lots of data Disadvantages: Short operating range (5 cm) Low data rate (100-400 kbit/s) Inapplicable for applications like Real time streaming of sensor data Download biosignals like 24h ECG Upload of device configuration / firmware update 6
Bluetooth may help, but Lots of usability issues Pairing process Search Select Enter pin code Device replacement need re-pairing Bluetooth has all time be switched on to enable an automatic workflow massive power consumption 7
Combination of both technologies Usage of NFC to Launch mobile sw. application Read Bluetooth pairing information MAC adress, service name, Pin code Start Bluetooth module (via field detector) Usage of Bluetooth to Establish a transparent peer 2 peer connection between mobile application and sensor device Control sensor device remotely via commands 8
NFC based Bluetooth pairing Bluetooth pairing information µc Acceptance Peer to peer of connection Bluetooth Inquiry connection based specific pairing information ADC Digital I/O 9
Combination of BP meter and ECG sensor 10
Combined acquisition of BP and ECG data Touching the meter with the phone launches the installed application (app) and activates the BT module of the sensor device App reads pairing info from RFID tag and establishes BT connection to sensor device without manual input App asks patient to put on the cuff and to touch the electrodes with the fingertips (acoustically) App sends command to sensor device that triggers BP measurement and ECG sampling (no human interaction at sensor device) Sensor device streams ECG data to mobile phone that displays the signal and a level of its quality until the BP measurement has finished 11
System overview Monitoring centre SYS DIA HRT Arzt Doctor 12
Results An easy-to-use wireless communication platform has been developed and implemented prototypically. This communication platform can be easily linked to a mobile phone by means of touching it and is able to transmit biosignal in real time. A mobile phone based patient terminal for the intuitive acquisition of ECG and blood pressure data was developed and integrated to an existing telemonitoring system. The complete system has been evaluated in terms of performance and usability and was rated to be ready for a clinical trial. 13
Conclusion By means of joining Bluetooth with NFC technology, an easy-to-use interface in between sensor device and mobile phones was realized. This concept could extend the existing monitoring solution and would allow for seamless acquisition of all kind of monitoring data, including biosignals, just by touching icons and sensor devices with a mobile phone. This touch based solution has the potential to significantly increase the usability of mobile phone and Bluetooth based telemonitoring applications for both the patient as well as the technical support. 14
Future prospects Starting a clinical trial with patients suffering from congestive heart failure Medical University of Graz 20 patients Blood pressure with ECG, body weight, medication intake, and well-being Adopting this approach to further biosignals Three dimension accelerometer sensor Curve of pulmonary function 15
Acknowledgement This project is partly funded by the Styrian government, department 3, science and research (Forschung Steiermark - Planung, Steuerung, Impulse - A3-22.E-4/2008-12). 16