Satellite and wireless links issues in healthcare monitoring

Thanks to the facilities offered by telecommunications, telemedicine today allows physicians and clinicians to access, monitor and diagnose patients remotely. Telemedicine includes several applications such as remote monitoring of chronically ill patients, monitoring people in their everyday lives to provide early detection and intervention for various types of diseases, computer-assisted physical rehabilitation in ambulatory settings, and assisted living for the elderly at home. These new applications require a reliable, wireless communication link between the devices implanted in the patient’s skin and a clinician. In this article, this issue is discussed and a list of performance criteria for the different communication links used is addressed, especially focusing on the satellite link. © Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2013.