Wireless Communication based Portable Telecardiology System for Rural Health Care

Abstract

A scheme for development of a complete diagnostic telecardiology system for rural health care is described in this paper. The developed system having two separate blocks, first of which will be carried at patient bedside and contains a portable ECG machine interfaced with a micro-controller-based full duplex communication system capable of transmitting ECG signals over a distance of about 5–7 km through a cordless phone. The second block is a PC based system, to be placed at the rural health-care centre. This system will generate an initial report about the abnormality of the incoming ECG from an inbuilt knowledge base, which was developed from feedback of different cardiologists and after consultation of different medical books. The generated report will then be sent back to the patient by the system. The main advantage of the system is that it will not require the presence of any doctor at initial stage. The ECG of the patient with critical abnormality or unknown abnormality will be directly sent to the doctors automatically and intimation will also be sent to the patient directly.