The advantages of remote patient monitoring continue to drive innovations at the mobile point of care. The latest evidence comes from the University of Houston, where a team of researchers is designing an in-home health-monitoring system that will notify caregivers, via smartphones or PDAs, if their patients need attention.

Driss Benhaddou, an assistant professor of engineering technology at UH's College of Technology, began work with his team four years ago on a wireless health-monitoring system in conjunction with the Abramson Center for the Future of Health, a joint partnership between UH's College of Technology and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, which emphasizes personalized medicine and medical device development.

Based on the notion that sensor networks can be applied to any type of removed healthcare using off-the-shelf technology, the research team has developed a monitoring system that uses processor boards found in a variety of electronics, making it possible to wire an entire home for about $1,000.

A patient whose movement is being monitored, due to Alzheimer's or dementia, for example, will wear a sensor the size of a quarter on a belt or piece of clothing, according to a Healthcare IT News report. A person whose vital signs, such as temperature, heartbeat or oxygen level, are being monitored will wear the sensor on his or her skin. The house sensors communicate with the sensor on the person and with a hub, which would be connected to the Internet and communicate with a caregiver's smartphone or PDA. Components can be added or removed without the intricate knowledge of the system, because it uses plug-and-play technology.

While there are obvious advantages to home monitoring, tracking vital signs with this kind of system in a hospital setting also would help reduce the burden on physicians and nurses.