A Preliminary Prototype of Smart Healthcare Modular System for Cardiovascular Diseases Remote Monitoring

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 17.9 millions people per year die from cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), representing more than 32% of all deaths recorded worldwide. Moreover, focusing on the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) member countries, CVDs remain the most common cause of death. Additionally, the worldwide pandemic situation has further underlined the necessity of remote health monitoring systems, aiming at remotely supervising patients by clinicians, able to analyse and record a selected set of parameters with high accuracy levels and promptly identify significant events. In this scenario, this work aims to propose a reconfigurable preliminary prototype of Smart Healthcare Modular System (SHeMS), which combines modularity and real-time signal analysis, leveraging on sensor fusion and Internet of Things technologies. The architecture of the system, as well as the selected main components will be presented, together with the rationale for the development of the whole system. The current evolution of the project has focused particularly on the accurate measurement of the electrocardiographic (ECG) signal, considered the most critical vital parameter for remote monitoring. Besides, the presented ongoing activity is devoted to the implementation of other significant modules, like SpO2, blood pressure, temperature, vocal messages, to enhance monitoring capabilities and increase the detection accuracy of critical events.