Wireless Multimedia Communication toward Mobile ... - wseas.us

Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED INFORMATICS AND COMMUNICATIONS (AIC '09)

Wireless Multimedia Communication toward Mobile Telemedicine Chin-Feng Lin and Hsin-Wang Lee Department of Electrical Engineering National Taiwan Ocean University No.2 Beinging Road, Keelung Taiwan [email protected] Abstract: - Mobile telemedicine is one of the advanced technologies of the 21st century. It can be used to provide auxiliary medical service and has therefore been used in emergency situations, mobile hospitals, p e r s o na lh e a l t h c a r e ,a ndr a pi d l ya l e r t i ngdoc t o r st oapa t i e nt s ’di s e a s e ,r e ha bi l i t a t i on,e t c .Byus i ngt he advantages of wireless multimedia communication such as high utility in modern times, convenience, high data transmission date, high reliability, and wide coverage, we develop mobile telemedicine system. Mobile telemedicine technology is a wireless remote medicine technology that incorporates a combination of biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science; the technology also includes various advanced medical services. It is unrestrained from limitations of time and space. By the use of this technology, the family doctor can be more actively in the daily life of the patient. There is no doubt that in the future, we will witness a ne r ao f“ ubiquitous mobile te l e me di c i ne ” . Such a technology is expected to bring about revolutionary changes in the fields of medicine and engineering. Such changes with be accompanied by ample opportunities for business, scope for early diagnosis of diseases, and enhance medical service; moreover, manufacturers of clinical equipment are expected to respond favorably to such changes. Advanced technologies of the 20th century, such as the internet and mobile communication, have made human lives easier. The combination of these two technologies yields wireless multimedia networks, the extension of which are mobile telemedicine systems. We would like to emphasize on the point that the R&D process of these mobile telemedicine systems is similar to that of pharmaceuticals. Key-Words: - ubiquitous mobile telemedicine, advantages of wireless multimedia communication, emergency situations, mobile hospitals, personal healthcare, p a t i e nt s ’di s e a s e , r e ha b i l i t a t i on. physiological condition of the patient in advance and arrange for emergency medical resources well in time, which would decrease the actual time required for treating the patient. E-hospital has been accepted by medical personnel, and they use internet technology to enhance the efficiency and quality of hospitals. In the further, M-hospitals are expected to be deployed more commonly by hospitals. The wireless internet as well as wireless multimedia communication technologies will be used and revised for M-hospitals in next steps. Mobile hospitals frequently encounter problems such as their highly sensitive quality of service parameters in wireless clinical application. It would be interesting to investigate how this wireless multimedia communication could be used or revised in the healthcare market. For this purpose, it would be necessary to discuss the electrical magnetic interference in medicine detection instruments such as cardiograph meters, blood pressure gauges; it would also be necessary to evaluate the acceptance of mobile hospitals by medical personnel. Furthermore, it is essential to enhance the efficiency and quality in

1 Introduction Mobile telemedicine is one of the advanced technologies of the 21st century. It can be used to provide auxiliary medical service and has therefore been used in emergency situations, mobile hospitals, personal healthcare, and rapidly alerting doctors to a p a t i e n t s ’d i s e a s e ,r e ha bi l i t a t i on,e t c[ 1-30]. By using the advantages of wireless multimedia communication such as high utility in modern times, convenience, high data transmission date, high reliability, and wide coverage, we develop mobile telemedicine system. An ambulance that initially leaves the hospital, to attend to an accident patient includes only one physician. In an emergency telemedicine system, the ambulance is equipped with GSM (global system for mobile communication), GPRS(general packet radio service), 3G, WiMAX, or a satellite mobile communication system, for the purpose of wireless transmission of videos, images, cardiographs, and pulse information of the accident patient to the emergency clinic. This enables the physician in the clinic to comprehend the

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E-hospitals. Personal health management is an interesting and popular research topic at present. Such management can be achieved by using medicine detection instruments, which examine the p a t i e n t ’ sphysiological condition on a daily basis, this information is then transmitted via a wired or wireless multimedia communication network to hospitals and is stored in their databases. Then, the family doctor can provide appropriate advice to the patient and can detect symptoms of various diseases, in this manner, the doctor can alert the patient to his/her disease rather early. When the patient recovers up to a certain stage, the doctor may permit the patient to leave the hospital and take rest at home. Follow up rehabilitation can be achieved by installing the medicine detection instruments a tt hepa t i e n t ’ s home, in order for the doctor to continually monitor the physiological condition of the patient. Then, the patient can use an interactive remote teleconference with the doctor. Such teleconferences reduce the need for the patient to be hospitalized, and instances of traveling between the hospital and home for rehabilitation purposes.

2. Method Mobile telemedicine technology is a wireless remote medicine technology that incorporates a combination of biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science; the technology also includes various advanced medical services. It is unrestrained from limitations of time and space. By the use of this technology, the family doctor can be more actively in the daily life of the patient, as shown in figure 1. Thus, in a mobile telemedicine system, processing of medical signals is carried out, and tasks based on biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science are performed. Examples of such tasks include data compression to reduce the volume of transmitted data; data encryption for protecting the privacy of the disease condition of the patient [25-27]; obtaining instantaneous frequency data by approaches such as the Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT), in order to carry out time or frequency domain analysis of the electroencephalogram (EEG) of an alcoholic patient. As shown in figure 1, clinical media contain information in various forms such as text, graphics, audio signals, images as well as video signals; they could also contain information in the form of static data, for example, X-ray images, clinical EEG signals, or results of ultrasonic scans. Therefore, it is necessary to search for identify and classify these clinical media. We should acquire clinical signals from various low-cost and high-accuracy medicine signal detection instruments,

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and then transmit these clinical signals via wired or wireless multimedia communication networks. Telemedicine using wire multimedia networks has been commonly used and well studied in the past. We discuss wireless multimedia communication toward mobile telemedicine. Mobile telemedicine is an extension of wired telemedicine. There have been increasing advancements in wireless multimedia network technologies, if such advanced technologies can be used in combination with clinical technologies, the resultant technology, so called mobile telemedicine, can be unrestrained from limitations of time and space. The primary objectives of mobile telemedicine are as follows digitalization of the media, wireless transmission, personal health monitoring, and assistance of remote disease diagnosis. Examples of wireless transmission platforms include Bluetooth, ultrawideband systems, wireless local area networks, mobile satellite communication systems, and ground cellular mobile communication technologies such as GSM, GPRS, 3G cellular telephony, WiMAX. It is important to consider the quality-of-service parameters of wireless multimedia transmission platforms, such as transmission distance, data transmission rate, and bit error rate (BER), while designing a mobile telemedicine system. Moreover, it is important to ensure that the selected wireless transmission platform does not induce electrical magnetic interference in the medicine detection instrument, which would adversely affect the accuracy of detection. Usually, measured values of clinical data such as cardiographs, clinical EEG signals, pulse, blood pressure, history and body temperature are expected to have a maximum transmission BER of 10 7 ; image signals such as digital X-ray films are expected to have a maximum BER of 10 4 ; further, audio signals are expected to have a maximum BER of 10 3 . Next, we discuss the coverage range and data transmission rates of the abovementioned transmission platforms. The coverage range and data transmission rate of Blue-tooth are within 10m, and 1_2 Mbps; those of ultra-wideband systems are 10m, and up to a few hundred megabits per second; and those of wireless local area networks are 100m, and up to a few hundred megabits per second, respectively. Blue-tooth, ultra-wideband systems, and wireless local area networks are suitable for indoor applications. The coverage range and data transmission rate of GSM are 50km, and 9.6 kbps; those of GPRS are 50km, and 100 kbps; those of WCDMA are 50km, and 384 kbps; and those of WiMAX are 50km, and up to10 Mbps, respectively. Finally, the coverage range and data transmission rate

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manufacturers of clinical equipment are expected to respond favourably to such changes. In reference [2], the authors discussed the importance of formulating new standards for remote healthcare and the status of currently available standards. We are interested in ways of combining advanced, high -speed and reliable mobile multimedia networks with clinical application, and in enhancing medical services. In particular, we are interested in discussing standardization of telemedicine codes related to medical service, health care providers, telemedicine conference, and information security management. In mobile telemedicine, advanced, high-speed and reliable wireless communication technologies are used to transmit i n f or ma t i onont hepa t i e nt ’ shealth and medical history. The US Department of Health and Human Services(DHHS) has reported that there are approximately 400 telemedicine teams conducting experiments all over the US. However, mobile telemedicine services have not yet been standardized worldwide. For example, many hardware devices and software programs developed by telemedicine teams have been a challenge to wireless multimedia communicate properly such as linked inefficiently or expensive. The American National Standards Institute, (ANSI) is currently focusing on formulating standards for telemedicine, for example, “ he a l t hl e v e l7,HL7” [ 3]. HL7 is a standard that mainly discuss the management and healthcare of patients in telemedicine, it also

of a mobile satellite communication system are 500km, and a few kilobits per second to a few tens of megabits per second. GSM, GPRS, WCDMA, WiMAX, and mobile satellite communication are suitable for high-speed outdoor applications. Figure 2 shows an example of transport architecture of a mobile telemedicine system, i.e. a medicine detection instrument; it includes an EEG instrument, a microphone, and an image sensor, and it transmits data to a hospital via a satellite or cellular mobile communication system. Doctors can use an interactive teleconference with the patient and conduct a discussion on the basis of information transmitted in the form of clinical EEG signals, the characteristics of clinical signals of time-frequency analysis, etc. Clinical signals that are commonly employed in recent times include X-ray images, cardiographs, EEG signals, pa t i e n t s ’hi s t o r i e s , body temperatures, pulse, CO2 concentration, ultrasonic images, and blood oxygen concentration. Figure 3 shows an example of a mobile telemedicine concept.

3 Discussion

There is no doubt that in the future, we will witness a ne r ao f“ ubiquitous mobile te l e me di c i ne ” .Such a technology is expected to bring about revolutionary changes in the fields of medicine and engineering. Such changes with be accompanied by ample opportunities for business, scope for early diagnosis of diseases, and enhance medical service; moreover,

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discusses ways to design a telemedicine system.There is a high demand for emergency medical rescue and healthcare monitoring in aircraft, ships, and in isolated terrains such as islands, mountainous areas, and tropical rain forests. Doctors can use a telemedicine system to make interactive telemedicine conferences with patients in such locations, a n dc a na c c e s st h epa t i e nt s ’c l i ni c a ls i g na l s via seamless satellite multimedia communication technology, without limitation of time and space. The data transmission rate of second-generation mobile satellite communication system is 10-100kbps, for example, that of the international maritime satellite communication system, INMARSAT is 24 kbps. Further, the data transmission rate of third-generation mobile satellite communication systems is 100k-100Mbps. Maritime telemedicine systems include Engineering Test Satellite No. V (ETS-V)[4], MERMAID[5], Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) [6], TelePACS[7], MEDI[8], satellite wideband code division multiple access, (SWCDMA)[10], satellite orthogonal frequency multiplexing access, SOFDM [11], and etc. As mentioned earlier, ground cellular multimedia communication technologies such as GSM, PHS, WCDMA, OFDM can be used in mobile telemedicine; examples of their application include AMBULANCE[12], wireless application protocol (WAP) [13], Airmed-Cardio[14]. Further, Teletrauma telemedicine system instantly transmits video, clinical images and cardiographs of patients for speeding up preliminary preparations in hospitals[15]. Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) channels transmit information useful

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for mobile telemedicine[16], mobile telemedicine systems designed on the basis of the WiMAX [17], as well as multi-code CDMA [18]. Examples of mobile telemedicine systems that can be used over short distances are Bluetooth telemedicine technology [19], body area network [20], 802.11 b/a/g WLAN, which can be used as wireless telemedicine systems [21], and ultra-wideband multimedia system, which is a advanced telemedicine technology [24].

4 Conclusion

Advanced technologies of the 20th century, such as the internet and mobile communication, have made human lives easier. The combination of these two technologies yields wireless multimedia networks, the extension of which are mobile telemedicine systems. The important factors to be considered while designing mobile telemedicine systems, are the transmission BER, data transmission rate, electrical magnetic interference, data encryption, the portability and size of the transmission system. We can use mobile telemedicine systems for emergency clinical rescue, alerting doctors to a pa t i e n t ’ sdisease, and rehabilitation. Currently, there exists a dense mobile telemedicine network worldwide; this network is a result of the combination of the following technologies: (1) mobile satellite multimedia communication separately used in conjunction with maritime medicine, and aviation medicine, (2) a short distance wireless telemedicine system used in conjunction with ground cellular mobile telemedicine technology such as bluetooth,

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wireless local area network and ultra-wideband communication technology. We would like to emphasize on the point that the R&D process of these mobile telemedicine systems is similar to that of pharmaceuticals.

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