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Design and Implementation of Real Time Health Care Monitoring

System Based on IoT
To cite this article: N. J. Abed and Ehab Abdulrazzaq Hussein 2021 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1818 012044

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

Design and Implementation of Real Time Health Care

Monitoring System Based on IoT

N. J. Abed1 , Ehab Abdulrazzaq Hussein1

1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of
Babylon, Iraq.

[email protected] ,
[email protected]

Abstract: Patient health monitoring is an important and rapidly growing field,

nowadays with opportunities for advancing technologies; many researchers have come
up with different designs for patient healthcare monitoring systems according to
technological development. The proposed business plan consists of various devices
such as web-based sensors or mobile-based applications that communicate over the
network and make the system he builds to monitor and record patient medical data and
health information more efficient. A health system has been designed consisting of
sensors and monitoring devices capable of collecting medical data from patients and
then transmitting them via the Internet to specialist doctors in order to accurately assess
the patient's health status. Currently, the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare is the
most important part that provides better patient health monitoring and makes doctors
and hospitals work better and less difficult. This scheme aims to develop an appropriate
monitoring system that provides better medical service to patients as well as patients
who live in remote areas where there are no hospitals close to their residential areas by
connecting them via the Internet in order to collect data related to their health through
devices capable of recording the patient's heart rate and percentage Oxygen in the
patient’s blood and temperature.

1. Introduction
The Internet of Things is defined as a type of network interconnection used to connect anything
(devices) to the Internet by relying on the protocols stipulated by the information sensor
equipment in order to conduct the communication process and exchange information in order
to achieve tracking, intelligent identification, monitoring, positioning and management. Our
world can be envisioned as containing billions of organisms from sensors that share and
transmit all information, all of which are interconnected and connected via private or public
Internet Protocol (IP) networks[1].
The design of the health care system should provide the best possible health care for patients
at all times and wherever these patients are located in an easy way. Recently, health care
systems developers have begun to change to a new approach in which the focus is on the patient.
The previous approach to the health system has two main problems. First, those who provide
health care must stay with the patient, and secondly, the patient must stay inside the hospital in
order to monitor his health. Therefore IoT is used in order to overcome these two problems [2].
Internet of things (IoT) has been an ever-increasing technology that can be used to connect
anything and everything via the internet. It targets at collecting data from different sources with
more accuracy and less time. Internet of things (IoT) can be used to collect and exchange of

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

data that can be stored and in another time used for analysis, measurement, and reference by
healthcare professional [3]. Usually the patient’s health monitoring system consists of different
sensors used for measuring the physiological information take it from the patient and transfers
them as electrical signals. After processing this physiological information and transmits them
to associated website that is connected to the Internet of things (IoT) module. The doctors or
the heath givers can access to the website by using the special Internet protocol (IP) that is
allocated to the patient. As we are saving the information in the cloud it can be easily accessed
anywhere, anytime and monitoring the patient via the internet. So the patient requires not taking
all the medical reports for the repeated medical check-up. The doctors can easily access to the
medical reports by using the patient’s Internet protocol (IP) on that website. In the present
system the transfer of data received from the sensors is in intermittent form. If any critical case
is registered it sends an alert message via the internet to the registered caregivers [4].
The importance of this research can be summarized as follows:
• Developing a system to improve medical outcomes and the quality of health services
provided, especially for the elderly population.
• Get patient vital signals in real time.
• Reducing the need to visit or stay in the hospital.
• The ability of the health care professional to monitor the patient’s health, even if the
patient’s location is far from the hospital.
Various models for the Internet of Things (IoT) have been proposed by many
professional researchers focusing on the healthcare field and trying to early detection of
different types of diseases through the use of modern medical technologies. Here are some of
these researches conducted in the same field.
Reza S. Dilmaghani [5] designed a Wi-Fi sensor network that will be able to monitor all
chronic diseases that a patient suffers with while he is at home by means of a monitoring system
that enables specialists to follow up on the patient's health status remotely. This system is
designed to measure the blood pressure, etc. at the same time.
Sneha N. Malokar and Samadhan D. Mali [2] developed the health care monitoring system
to provide essential patient health history at the real time to the responsible doctors. The purpose
of our paper is to monitor the system by using wireless sensor system and IoT network with
high accuracy and security.
Shubham Banka, Isha Madan and S.S. Saranya [6] provided and proved the first design of
a system that provides regular monitoring that includes various aspects of patient health care,
trying to detect any kind of disease and reducing frequent visits to the hospital. This system can
be set up in hospitals and used to collect data from patients and store them on the network
servers connected to the Internet and thus this data can be accessed from any electronic device
connected to the Internet.
Abasi Julius, Zhang Jian-Min [7] obtained temperature body of the patient, and heart rate.
When there is an increase of patient body temperature or heartbeat rate the care givers get an
urgent message so that they can take some immediate procedure.
K. N. Muralidhara and Bhoomika B. K. [8] established a patient health monitoring system
by relying on the Internet of Things to provide a distinct health monitoring system. In this paper,
they used temperature sensors and a pulse oximeter sensor.
Tello, J. P., Manjarres, O., Quijano, M., Blanco, A. et al. [9] designed a healthcare program
to follow health data related to temperature and . It consists of several parts: (1) Hardware part.
(2) Bluetooth part. (3) Display part. After obtaining the data it is displayed and then transferred
via WiFi to the main database.
Abinaya, Vinoth Kumar and Swathika [10] showed the great importance of the Internet of
Things in the medical field. This technique helps doctors to monitor patients' health
continuously and easier methods to determine the appropriate treatment.
Pratiksha P. Dolas, S. L. Nalbalwar, S. B. Deosarkar, Sachin Singh [11] developed a system
that enables healthcare professionals to monitor disease at any time. This system includes
sensors such as temperature and electrocardiogram (ECG). The data are displayed and then sent
to the server.

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

2. proposed system
The proposed system is constructed by connecting all medical sensors to a microcontroller that
is equipped with appropriate power. The microcontroller is connected to the results display
device (computer) and then the data transfer and display process begins on the graphic interface
designed using the 2013 Vision Basic program, after displaying the results, all medical
information is transferred in real time through the cloud to the specialist doctor in order to fully
diagnose the patient’s condition . The figure 1 shows the proposed system design. The proposed
system is based on two main parts:

1. HARDWARE.
2. SOFTWARE.

Figure 1. The proposed system design.

2.1 HARDWARE.
Two types of sensors were used in the equipment section: the LM35 temperature sensor, Pulse
Oximeter and Heart-Rate Sensor MAX30100. These two types were chosen because of their
reading accuracy, small size, ease of operation, and compatibility with the used Arduino Uno
microcontroller.

2.1.1 TEMPERTURE SENSOR LM35

The LM35 temperature sensor works in integrated electronic circuits to measure different
temperatures as it is an accurate reading of the percentage temperature. The working
temperature is between -55 ° C to +150 ° C. The LM35 sensor is affected by the increase or
decrease in the ambient temperature, so the resulting voltage changes by 10mv. The LM35
sensor works at 5 volts [10]. Here we use the LM35 temperature sensor to measure the patient's
temperature. Figure 2 represents the LM35 temperature sensor.

Figure 2. Temperature Sensor LM35.

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

2.1.2 PULSE OXIMETER AND HEART-RATE SENSOR MAX30100

It is an integrated circuit (IC) used to measure the level of oxygen in the blood as well as in
measuring the heart rate that occurs by means of devices and systems for monitoring patient
health, portable such as modern phones or wearable, such as modern watches. The MAX30100
sensor has two LEDs (infrared / red) with improved optics, optical detector and techniques used
to process low-signal analog signals. For the MAX30100 to function perfectly, it requires a
voltage range of between 1.8V or 3.3V[12]. Figure 3 represents the pulse oximeter and heart-
rate sensor MAX30100.

Figure 3. Pulse oximeter and heart-rate sensor MAX30100.

2.1. 3 ARDUINO UNO

Arduino UNO is an ATmega328 based microcontroller board. Arduino UNO has 14 digital I /
O ports (6 of these can be used as PWM output), 6 analog inputs are also available, there is also
a 16MHz ceramic resonator, power jack, USB connection, reset button, and ICSP header.
Regarding memory, the ATmega328 contains 32 KB (using 0.5 KB boot loader). In addition,
it has 2 KB of SRAM as well as 1 KB of EEPROM. Table 1. shows all the characteristics of
the Arduino in summary form.
Table 1. the characteristics of the Arduino in summary form.
Microcontroller ATmega328
Operating Voltage 5V
Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V
Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
Analog Input Pins 6
DC Current per I/O Pin 40 mA
DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mA
Flash Memory 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 0.5 KB used by the boot loader
SRAM 2 KB (ATmega328)
EEPROM 1 KB (ATmega328)
Clock Speed 16 MHz

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

It is possible to power the Arduino UNO through a USB connection or an external power
source. External (non-USB) power can be obtained either by using an AC to DC adapter or by
using a battery. The Arduino UNO board runs on an external gear source from 6 to 20 volts.
The amount of voltage supplied from the external source is preferably between (7 – 12) volts
in order to maintain the stability of the Arduino UNO board . Figure 4 shows Arduino UNO
microcontroller[13].

Figure 4. Arduino UNO microcontroller.

2.2 SOFTWARE.
The Arduino IDE software and the Visual Basic vb .net were used to accomplish this work.

2.2.1 ARDUINO IDE SOFTWARE

Arduino IDE is a tool that developers can benefit from. It is written in a Java roll. It helps
developers to control all the functions that the Arduino performs. Various programs written
with the Arduino (IDE) program are called graphics. These graphics are saved in the .ino file
extension. Figure 5. Show the Flowchart represents the processes that are done in the control
unit.

2.2.2 VISUAL BASIC VB .NET

It is a Microsoft development environment and programming language based on the famous
BASIC language. It is classified within the programming languages of objects. Since Microsoft
began issuing Visual Basic, it has been very successful and popular among programmers due
to the ease of use in exchange for the extreme complexity faced by any programmer seeking to
program Windows using the C language or C++ programming. Visual Basic is suitable for
database applications, applications for small companies, and accounting programs. It is
convenient, easy, and performs the purpose in addition, allowing the programmer to focus on
solving the problem, as he often finds technical difficulty while writing a program in Visual
Basic.
The Visual Basic programming language was used in order to obtain a real-time data
transfer, which is the main goal of the project, in addition to being an easy and understandable
language and providing the ability to form a graphical interface to the user, and in addition it is
an easy-to-implement language. This version of the program developed from the old version of
the BASIC language that works under the DOS environment to this version that works under
the Windows environment.

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

Figure 5. The flowchart of Temp., SPO2 and Hart Rate sensors in the MCU unit.

3. Results and Discussion

Practical results are considered the validity of the scientific evidence and the efficiency of the
tools used in the construction of the proposed system which has been implemented in practice.
All vital signs of the patient were successfully obtained, which are the patient’s temperature,
the patient’s heart rate and the percentage of oxygen in the patient’s blood. All these signals
were done in real time. In the event of a dangerous change in temperature, heart rate, blood
oxygen level, health care providers receives notification that they must act urgently and provide
medical procedures. All the signals obtained in the graphical user interface that were built in
Visual Basic vb.net are displayed. All these results can be seen by doctors on the Internet.
Another result of this research is to obtain a low cost as the cost of project components such as
sensors and microcontroller is not high. The data has been properly stored in the cloud with the
possibility of obtaining it when needed with ease. As a result, patients do not need to go to the
hospital except in emergency cases.
Before starting to display the results of vital signs extracted from the patient’s body, the user
(the doctor or nurse in charge of providing health care) needs to open the main graphical user
interface in order to monitor the patient’s condition, he must enter his username and password
in the security GUI. The user information entry results can be seen in Figure (6).

Below is a display of all results in the first case, at the patient’s room site, and in the second
case, in the doctor’s location, who is connected to the Internet.

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

Figure 6. Security GUI at the patient’s room site.

3.1 First case: at the patient’s room site.

In this case the patient's vital signs are obtained and displayed in the graphic interface. Figure
7. shows the Visual Basic GUI. First case: at the patient’s room site.

Figure 7. The result of the (temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen level, ) at the patient’s
room.

3.2 Second case: in the doctor’s location, who is connected to the Internet..
In this case, all the health signals received are displayed by the specialist physician. Internet
connection is necessary in order to receive these signals. Figure 8. show the Visual Basic GUI.
Second case: in the doctor’s location

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

Figure 8. The result of the (temperature, heart rate and blood oxygen level) in the doctor’s
location.

Figure 9. It shows the main parts used in the project, which include the sensors, which are
(the temperature sensor, Pulse oximeter and heart-rate sensor MAX30100, the Arduino Uno
microcontroller that reads all the sensor data and processes it, and the (laptop) preview unit in
order to display all the results obtained, cable It is used for the process of connecting a
microcontroller with the sampling unit. After completing the circuit connection, the sensors are
connected to the human body and start the process of reading the data, the microcontroller
receives and processes all signals, and then sends them by the serial to the monitoring unit
(laptop) in order to display them in the main user interface that was built using the 2013
Futuristic program . The transfer of medical data using the Internet takes place automatically
in real time and is stored in the cloud and called upon when needed. The receiving party is the
specialist doctor who is able to follow the patient from anywhere.

Figure 9. Hardware kit along with the output in Visual Basic main user interface.

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Iraqi Academics Syndicate International Conference for Pure and Applied Sciences IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1818 (2021) 012044 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1818/1/012044

4. Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above that a modified system has been proposed to monitor the
patient's health via the Internet of Thinks (IoT), in order to create a 24-hour monitoring system
to follow up on patients. Also, this field is receiving great attention to provide continuous and
inexpensive healthcare to patients. The current work can also be developed through the use of
an additional number of biosensors. These devices will monitor a wide range of physiological
parameters to make a more comprehensive monitoring system.

5. References
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[3] A. Kakkar, 2019 An IoT Equipped Hospital Model: A New Approach for E-
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[4] K. Haripriya, C. M. Aravind, V. Karthigayen, and P. Ganesh, 2016 Patient Health
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[5] J. J. Rani, 2018 A SMART PATIENT HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEM, vol. 119,
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[6] I. M. and S. S. S. Shubham Banka1, 2020 Smart healthcare monitoring system using
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