Smart vital signs monitoring system for patient triage: A case of hospitals in Malawi

Abstract

Monitoring of vital signs such as temperature, pulse rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure is necessary for efficient and effective patient management. Vital signs are regularly measured at specific intervals in patients in the Emergency department or critically ill patients in other departments in a medical institution. Measuring vital signs is necessary in patient management, but availability of resources in health institutions does differ and this affects how attention is given to patients when it is due. The Internet of Things (IoT) is being used in different applications. Its ability to make objects that were not connected to finally have an internet connection is what is enabling IoT to be beneficial in human activities. IoT uses different sensors to measure changes in an environment. It can be used to measure vital signs of patients in a hospital. This research proposes an IoT-based system that measures vital signs of both the patients on the waiting queue in the outpatient departments and those in health institution wards. An evaluation will be made on the current systems in use in measuring vital signs and how this affects patient management. The proposed system is expected to measure heart rate and oxygen saturation of patients at specific intervals. The collected data will be sent to connected devices that health workers have access to. By having real time data of a patient’s condition the system will enable health workers to assist patients in time.