CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES FOR M2M ARCHITECTURES IN E-HEALTH CONTEXT. A COMPREHENSIVE USE CASES REVIEW AND STANDARDIZATION TRENDS

Abstract

The interest in machine-to-machine (M2M)

systems has grown in recent years due to

ubiquitous wireless availability and declining

prices of communication modules. Although

in some areas this concept has developed

adequately, e-Health is not one of them. The

European Telecommunications Standards

Institute (ETSI) has made great efforts to

develop standards in this field, but the

resulting documents are sometimes difficult

to understand and include extensive technical

information.

The first objective of this research is to place

the M2M architecture defined by ETSI in the

environment of e-Health, identifying theoretical

concepts with real situations and specific

devices. Then, our work analyses use cases of

M2M applications for e-Health defined by ETSI,

clarifying ambiguous situations. To review the

use cases, we employ a personal and simplified

scheme for the architecture that is based on

a vertical and horizontal model, which allows

a visual and intuitive interpretation of the

steps executed in the different scenarios. The

engineers will have several diagrams with

interacting entities that represent a very useful

aid for system design and implementation.

In the review, we also find the importance of

energy efficiency in e-Health, especially in

life-critical applications, which may be the

subject of further investigations. On the other

hand, our study reveals the main problem with

medical devices: the plurality of communications

protocols established by suppliers. The current

ISO/IEEE 11073 standards, which enable

interoperability between these devices, may

be a good starting point to achieve M2M

standardization in this area.