TY - GEN
T1 - Reliable clinical monitoring using wireless sensor networks
T2 - 8th ACM International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, SenSys 2010
AU - Chipara, Octav
AU - Lu, Chenyang
AU - Bailey, Thomas C.
AU - Roman, Gruia Catalin
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - This paper presents the design, deployment, and empirical study of a wireless clinical monitoring system that collects pulse and oxygen saturation readings from patients. The primary contribution of this paper is an in-depth clinical trial that assesses the feasibility of wireless sensor networks for patient monitoring in general hospital units. We present a detailed analysis of the system reliability from a long term hospital deployment over seven months involving 41 patients in a step-down cardiology unit. The network achieved high reliability (median 99.68%, range 95.21% - 100%). The overall reliability of the system was dominated by sensing reliability of the pulse oximeters (median 80.85%, range 0.46% - 97.69%). Sensing failures usually occurred in short bursts, although longer periods were also present due to sensor disconnections. We show that the sensing reliability could be significantly improved through oversampling and by implementing a disconnection alarm system that incurs minimal intervention cost. A retrospective data analysis indicated that the system provided sufficient temporal resolution to support the detection of clinical deterioration in three patients who suffered from significant clinical events including transfer to Intensive Care Units. These results indicate the feasibility and promise of using wireless sensor networks for continuous patient monitoring and clinical deterioration detection in general hospital units.
AB - This paper presents the design, deployment, and empirical study of a wireless clinical monitoring system that collects pulse and oxygen saturation readings from patients. The primary contribution of this paper is an in-depth clinical trial that assesses the feasibility of wireless sensor networks for patient monitoring in general hospital units. We present a detailed analysis of the system reliability from a long term hospital deployment over seven months involving 41 patients in a step-down cardiology unit. The network achieved high reliability (median 99.68%, range 95.21% - 100%). The overall reliability of the system was dominated by sensing reliability of the pulse oximeters (median 80.85%, range 0.46% - 97.69%). Sensing failures usually occurred in short bursts, although longer periods were also present due to sensor disconnections. We show that the sensing reliability could be significantly improved through oversampling and by implementing a disconnection alarm system that incurs minimal intervention cost. A retrospective data analysis indicated that the system provided sufficient temporal resolution to support the detection of clinical deterioration in three patients who suffered from significant clinical events including transfer to Intensive Care Units. These results indicate the feasibility and promise of using wireless sensor networks for continuous patient monitoring and clinical deterioration detection in general hospital units.
KW - Patient monitoring
KW - Reliability
KW - Wireless sensor networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78650873460&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1869983.1869999
DO - 10.1145/1869983.1869999
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:78650873460
SN - 9781450303446
T3 - SenSys 2010 - Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems
SP - 155
EP - 168
BT - SenSys 2010 - Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 3 November 2010 through 5 November 2010
ER -