A virtual vital signs sensor 'MIRUWS' for visualization of healthy to illness transition (HIT)

摘要

This paper proposes a virtual Vital Signs Sensor (VSS) for visualization of half illness (so called "Mibyou") and sudden illness. Since both half and sudden illnesses, which are located in between wellness and illness, are categorized in healthy(H) to illness(I) transition(T) status. So, we name this status as HIT. Since HIT happens in an ordinary life, VSS for HIT visualization should work for 24 hours continuously and unconsciously. The proposed virtual VSS is named as "MIRUWS" which means (M)multi-sensing, (I)integrated, (R)reliable, and (U)unconscious (V)virtual (V)vital (S) signs sensor. All these key words are meaningful and required for professional HIT (Pro-HIT) visualization which has real demand rather than purely personal one. MIRUWS is a virtual VSS in a cyber space targeting this Pro-HIT visualization, and is a projection of actual VSSs in a physical space. There are wide varieties of physical sensors such as patch, touch, proximity, and remote types. To handle these wide varieties of VSSs efficiently and consistently, MIRUWS plays as a common and unique virtual VSS in a cyber space. Unlikely to medical devices which need very high reliability rather than flexibility, MIRUWS is needed to satisfy both reliability and flexibility at the same time to cover wide range of Pro-HIT use-cases. To realize this, MIRUWS visualizes physical VSS's specifications throughout new API, which are dynamically determined by connected and released physical VSSs in a BAN. To certify MIRUWS performance objectively, conformance testing is desired. This paper also presents MIRUWS test environment example, which measures basic vital signs performances, heart rate variation (HRV) and pulse wave transition time (PWTT) using two target physical VSSs at once.