The future of health : integrating medical health information systems and home health monitoring data into predictive health systems : [submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering]

Abstract

Health management systems have been around for a decade but none have offered the scalability such as the Internet. Personal patient health management has been the key issue behind deteriorating health. It has been realized that the patient can manage their condition at home while always staying in touch with a medical professional. Research shows that hypertension, if regularly monitored at home, can be improved. Users who have access to modern technology can utilize this to manage their blood pressure. This thesis discusses the development of an application that inputs user blood pressure data at home and makes intelligent and predictive decisions for the patient. A statistical model is discussed, which can predict future trends in the user's blood pressure measurements and adjust acceptable threshold based on the patient's long term health. By having the application running on a user's home PC, but with the data stored in a central location, telemedicine is made possible, as the patient's doctor or even the local health board has access to all patient data. If the system picks up any anomalies in the patient's data, a warning can be automatically issued to the patient or doctor so that intelligent decisions can be made to correct the situation. The overall goal of this research was to develop a windows based / web based software application to capture patient data in a centralized environment for the health professionals to diagnose using up-to-date blood pressure readings. The concept has been tested on a group of hypertensive users who had access to the software and their results were compared with a group who recorded their data using a conventional method. The collected data was analyzed and it was concluded that use of modern technology does help people manage their blood pressure among people with high blood pressure. The success of this research will enable patients to manage their blood pressure, predict future readings based on a patient's history and give a medical professional the exact information needed in diagnosing a patient's condition.