Abstract

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices are a novel method for physicians to monitor their patients after discharge and long after they have gone home. Usually RPM devices are bulky, relatively expensive, restricted in the physiological parameters they measure and are hard to operate.

MEDLINK is a low cost (~$C1500), verbally interactive, programmable and portable RPM device that possesses the ability to verbally interact with a physician to obtain his or her information as well as the patient’s key statistics, and then to obtain the physician’s selection of physiological parameters he or she wishes to remotely monitor from that particular patient. When the patient switches on the unit, MEDLINK also verbally interacts with the patient to measure and acquire the physician’s selected physiological parameter and sends this information to the physician’s phone, via text messages and emails. Security and privacy of patient’s medical data can be preserved by using the patient’s ID instead of patient name.

Physiological parameters that can be acquired by MEDLINK include: ECG, blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose, pulse rate, blood oxygen saturation, electromyography, body temperature, spirometer, respiratory rate and much more. Future work involves the integration of more biomedical sensors to the existing MEDLINK product to expand its range of measurable physiological parameters to its maximum, and to conduct a short clinical trial on the product prior to commercialisation.