Cost-Effective Platform for the Acquisition of Vital Signs

This work describes the development of a cost-effective platform for the acquisition of vital signs that can be applied in several health areas, such as the monitoring of sick patients in hospitals or at-home recovery, elderly people undergoing home surveillance, and sports professionals to evaluate performance gains in athletes under physical training. This system in its present configuration allows medical professionals to measure heart rate, percentage of oxygen in the blood, blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), carbon dioxide concentration in parts per million, and respiratory rate. The captured data is initially stored on a memory card and then sent through the internet to the cloud, where it is permanently stored, analyzed, and optimally displayed. Stored historical values can be retrieved from cloud storage and allow a more accurate assessment of a patient's health condition. The proposed platform can be expanded to monitor other vital signs and be adapted to different health applications.