Unobtrusive, Low‐Cost Out‐of‐Hospital, and In‐Hospital Measurement and Monitoring System

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of vital signs can be a life‐saving matter for different patient groups. The development is going toward more intelligent and unobtrusive systems to improve the usability of body‐worn monitoring devices. Body‐worn devices can be skin‐conformable, patch‐type monitoring systems that are comfortable to use even for prolonged periods of time. Herein, an intelligent and wearable, out‐of‐hospital, and in‐hospital four‐electrode electrocardiography (ECG) and respiration measurement and monitoring system is proposed. The system consists of a conformable screen‐printed disposable patch, a measurement unit, gateway unit, and cloud‐based analysis tools with reconfigurable signal processing pipelines. The performance of the ECG patch and the measurement unit was tested with cardiac patients and compared with a Holter monitoring device and discrete, single‐site electrodes.

Keywords

• body-worn monitoring
• electrocardiography
• impedance pneumography
• printed electronics
• wireless monitoring