A wireless oxygen saturation and heart rate monitoring and alarming system based on the Qatar early warning scoring system

Abstract

Monitoring vital signs and alarming healthcare emergency response units whenever measurements are outside the normal range could be life-saving for high-risk patients who are living alone or sleeping. This paper presents a system that wirelessly obtains the oxygen saturation and heart rate from patients using a pulse oximeter. An SMS alarm with the measurements is then sent to hospitals to contact the patient or dispatch an ambulance in case he/she does not respond. The SMS also contains the patient's GPS coordinates. The decision whether an alarming SMS should be sent is based on the Qatar Early Warning Scoring (QEWS) system. In this work, a base station unit to receive and analyze data coming from the sensor was developed and tested.