Designing interoperable telehealth platforms: bridging IoT devices with cloud infrastructures

Abstract

A platform offering web technologies and interoperable components is proposed, allowing integration of different technologies into a robust system. Key modules are provided in home, to support integration of IoT devices, and in the cloud, offering centralised services and storage. Communication between the two is performed using the open FIWARE-Orion protocol. Data are not tied to methods and resources, so the platform can handle multiple types of requests and data formats. The platform is deployed in HOLOBALANCE, a telerehabilitation system for balance disorders, providing surrogate holographic physiotherapists, real time evaluations of task performance and cloud-based data analytics for personalised coaching.

Factors influencing the adoption of telemedicine health services during COVID-19 pandemic crisis: an integrative research model

“…Telemedicine is referred as 'medical practice to diagnose, consult, educate and transfer of medical data using information communication technologies (ICT) as a mode of communication' (Abdalla 2019;Albarrak et al 2019;Pai and Alathur 2019). Several researchers have confirmed that telemedicine services through information and communication technology save time, money and bring effectiveness in health delivery system (Albarrak et al 2019;Hollander and Carr 2020;Hsu 2019;Pai and Alathur 2019;Tsiouris et al 2020). Despite several benefits which telemedicine applications offer to patients and physicians, the adoption of telemedicine health services is still in its initial stages (Alaboudi et al 2016; Barlow et al 2007;Hsu 2019;Kashyap 2020).…”

Robotic Home-Based Rehabilitation Systems Design: From a Literature Review to a Conceptual Framework for Community-Based Remote Therapy During COVID-19 Pandemic

“…While the aforementioned systems undoubtedly help with remote supervision and patient-therapist interaction, most of them are case-specific for their device and do not offer an interoperable platform allowing for supporting other devices. On the other hand, telehealth platforms for in-home interventions, which need more supervision, information exchange, and online communication, have gained significant traction over the recent years, (e.g., Wang et al, 2017 ; Kouris et al, 2018 ; Hilty et al, 2019 ; Tun et al, 2020 ; Tsiouris et al, 2020 ). Among existing telehealth frameworks, they either do not specifically and comprehensively address post-stroke robotic rehabilitation interventions or do not cover the beyond-physical-rehabilitation demands of this population.…”

“…Our framework offers a comprehensive solution addressing the multi-faceted needs of involved parties in post-stroke rehabilitation, including patients, healthcare professionals and researchers. To this end, some existing telehealth frameworks, e.g., HOLOBALANCE ( Tsiouris et al, 2020 ), could potentially be modified and adapted for implementing our conceptual framework.…”

Interoperability enablers for cyber-physical enterprise systems

“…Most platform designs, however, lacked the necessary interoperability to enable easy integration of different systems, devices or applications and allow un-intrusive data sharing between components and stakeholders. 'Designing Interoperable Telehealth Platforms: Bridging IoT Devices with Cloud Infrastructures' by Tsiouris et al (2020) proposes a platform offering Web technologies and interoperable components, to successfully integrate different technologies into a robust system. The platform is deployed by the HOLOBALANCE research project and validated in a telerehabilitation system for patients with balance disorders providing surrogate physiotherapist as a super-imposed hologram through augmented reality.…”