Data Warehousing and Decision Support in Mobile Wireless Patient Monitoring

The recent advances in wireless communication technologies have made possible the development of wireless systems for monitoring the health and disease status of patients, in both in-patient hospital settings and outside. The volume of patient monitoring data requires Data Warehousing technologies for storage intended for analysis. The analysis is performed by Decision Support Systems (DSS) that provide clinical diagnoses and treatment methodology consistent with the urgency. The clinical DSS is critical in the analysis of a volume of data beyond the capabilities of a healthcare professional, and is effective in reducing workload, saving money, and providing better care for patients. This chapter also analyzes the technical aspects of the process. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the developments in wireless communication systems and technologies have made communication and data transfer capabilities ubiquitous and independent of location, with the possibility of transferring large amounts of data from a mobile location. The users and beneficiaries of this technology include consumers, businesses, and public services [Chaudhry et al. 2007]. The mobile technology includes cellular telephones, Internet systems with WiFi, and wireless radio communication. One area in which wireless communication systems have been increasingly useful, although not as well known, is in clinical data systems and patient monitoring [Falas et al. 2003]. The wireless networks and technologies have allowed for a variety of systems for monitoring the health and disease status of patients, such as imaging Barin N. Nag Towson University, USA Mark Siegal National Library of Medicine, USA Data Warehousing and Decision Support in Mobile Wireless Patient Monitoring DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-818-7.ch6.8