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October 11, 2001

Researchers in the UK have developed a novel electronic system that allows signals from medical monitoring equipment to be transmitted across the mobile phone network. The project, funded by the Swindon based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, is an important advance in 'telemedicine', and could eventually enable doctors to monitor patients who are in remote locations many hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

The research has been carried out by Professor Bryan Woodward's group at Loughborough University. "The idea of using mobile phone technology is that someone who is not confined to a bed can be monitored remotely by a consultant in a hospital," says Professor Woodward. "For example someone who lives in the Highlands of Scotland a hundred miles from the nearest hospital could be given a routine check by mobile phone." The system could also be used by emergency rescue teams and in sports science to take physiological measurements of athletes while they are training.

"The system can be used for anything that can be monitored electronically, such as heart rate, blood pressure or temperature," says Professor Woodward.

For an electrocardiogram, measuring heart function, electrodes from the patient's chest would be fed into an electronic circuit contained within a holster on the patient's belt. The holster would also accommodate a standard mobile phone. The signal from the electrodes is processed by the electronic circuitry - the 'interface' - and converted into an infrared signal, similar to that used in a TV remote control.

The infrared signal is then transmitted to an infrared receiver on the phone, which then beams it across the mobile phone network to the doctor's computer. "Modern phones are equipped to receive infrared signals, so no modification is needed," says Professor Woodward. "The challenging part of the work has been to make the interface. It has required immensely difficult software development. First the signal from the electrodes must be digitised and stored, and possibly compressed. If you are transmitting more than one set of information - for example temperature as well as pulse rate and oxygen levels - these must be interleaved together, a process called multiplexing. Also because the data is confidential it must be encrypted , i.e. scrambled before it is sent over the airwaves and then de-scrambled at the doctor's computer."

The most important aspect of the system is the integrity and accuracy of the signal that is received by the doctor. "A cardiologist wants to see a signal exactly as if it had come directly off the patient's chest," says Professor Woodward. "Fortunately we have been able to reproduce signals very accurately indeed. The only limitations appear to be those inherent in the mobile phone network - losing the signal if you are going through a tunnel, for example."

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

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