Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

IoT-Based Health Monitoring System

Ahmad Umar Labdo1
1
Department of Computer Science,
Yusuf Maitama Sule University,
Kano, Nigeria.
(Northwest University Kano)

Abstract:- Wireless body area networks, known as body Wireless body area networks, also known as body sensor
sensor networks, are wireless networks of wearable networks, are wireless networks of wearable computing
computing devices. In this case, the wireless network devices. In this case, the wireless network deployed is the
deployed is the Internet of Things or IoT. This special Internet of Things or IoT. IoT is a giant network of connected
WBAN will allow nurses and doctors to have a real-time ‘things’ – people to people, things to things, and people to
view of the patient's physiological data and thereby detect things. This special WBAN will allow nurses and doctors to
unusual activities in the patient's health. This is achieved have a real-time view of the patient's physiological data and
by having a device that allows the patient to collect thereby detect unusual activities in the patient's health. This is
physiological data using sensors controlled by an Arduino achieved by having a device that allows the patient to collect
microcontroller board. Doctors can then log into the physiological data using sensors controlled by an Arduino
website and monitor the patient's health status in real-time microcontroller board. This data will be transmitted using a
and over some time. Wi-Fi module stored on a cloud site. Doctors can then log into
the website and monitor the patient's health status in real-time
Keywords:- Arduino; IoT; LCD; Pulse; Sensor; ThingSpeak; and over some time [2].
Wi-Fi.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
I. INTRODUCTION
A project on a patient health monitoring system using
According to the US Embassy in Nigeria, there are an IoT was developed in a technology-oriented healthcare
estimated 100 million cases of malaria each year in Nigeria. environment [3]. People are facing the problem of sudden
More than 300,000 of these cases resulted in death, more death due to heart attacks, due to not receiving timely medical
people die from malaria than from AIDS. 11% of child care for patients. Therefore, the study developed a project to
mortality is due to malaria. Anemia is another serious disease prevent sudden mortality using body health monitoring. In this
that causes death among children in Nigeria, 68.3% of children system, the patient will carry a device with sensors and an
under 5 years old are anemic. Many Nigerians also fall victim Android phone application, the sensors will detect the patient's
to cardiovascular diseases (CVD). In 2015, 17.7 million body temperature and heart rate and this data will be
people died from these diseases, accounting for 31% of deaths transmitted to the smartphone Android via Bluetooth or cloud-
worldwide [1]. enabled Wi-Fi system. The database stores all the patient's
health information and the doctor prescribes medication using
Malaria, anemia and CDV, like all diseases, have this information stored in the cloud. The device even allows
symptoms. One of the main symptoms of malaria is fever (high the patient to move freely and can be continuously monitored.
body temperature), while tachycardia (high pulse) is a The Android phone will contain an application that detects a
common symptom of anemia and CDV. Fever and rapid heart heart attack based on the corresponding received data, and if
rate are symptoms of dozens of diseases that millions of any abnormal signs related to a heart attack are detected, a
Nigerians suffer from every day. Every year, millions of message will be sent to the doctor, who patient and the
people die from diseases related to high body temperature and hospital. The SMS contains the patient's situation and location
heart rate. Very often, these symptoms are not detected early. (via GPS) to provide emergency medical care.
Patients suffering from or even recovering from these illnesses
need to have their health monitored by a doctor or nurse to The new architecture of the Internet of Things and Big
ensure their condition does not become life-threatening. Data ecosystem has been developed for a secure smart
Unfortunately, in Nigeria, the only way for a doctor or nurse healthcare monitoring and warning system. Wearable medical
to monitor a patient's health is to be present. This is a big devices with sensors continuously generate huge data, often
problem because according to the World Health Organization, referred to as big data combined with structured and
the doctor-to-patient ratio in Nigeria is 1:6,400. There are unstructured data. Due to the complexity of data, it is difficult
simply not enough doctors to continuously monitor the health to process and analyze big data to find valuable information
of many patients with the disease. that is useful in decision-making. On the other hand, data
security is a key requirement in Big Data healthcare systems.
To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a new
architecture for IoT implementation to store and process

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Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

scalable sensor data (big data) for healthcare applications. The  Problem Statement
proposed architecture includes the MF-R architecture that uses Going to the hospital, requiring a physicist's attention is
Big Data technologies such as Apache Pig and Apache HBase inevitable in life. Considering the health situation in the
to collect and store sensor data (big data) generated from other country, hospitals are not well manned and equipped, and thus
sensors each other and the proposed GC architecture is used to are filled up, an overwhelming number of patients turn up
ensure fog integration, IT with cloud computing. This every day wanting to see doctors, which causes a lot of chaos.
architecture also uses key management services and data The transportation to be used in other to reach the hospitals is
classification functions (sensitive, critical, and normal) to very poor, especially in populated states like Kano, the roads
provide security services. This framework also uses a Map take lives just as much as the diseases. All the above-
Reduce-based prediction model to predict heart diseases. mentioned facts make it very difficult to go to hospitals, even
Performance evaluation parameters such as throughput, when in need.
sensitivity, accuracy, and f-measure are calculated to
demonstrate the proposed architecture's effectiveness and the For the reasons mentioned above, I decided to design a
prediction model [4]. Wireless Body Area Network for health monitoring.
Therefore, this proposed system is needed in other to
In another project, a Big Health application system based overcome the mentioned difficulties, easily link patients and
on the Internet of Things and Big Data for healthcare was doctors and save lives in the process.
developed by [5]. The world is facing problems such as uneven
distribution of health resources, increasing chronic diseases III. METHODOLOGY
and increasing medical costs. Integrating the latest information
technology into the healthcare system will significantly reduce A. System Requirements
problems. This article introduces a large medical application
system based on the Internet of Health Things and Big Data.  Functional Requirements

A BSN CARE: Modern, secure healthcare system based  The system should be able to read the heart rate (pulse
on IoT using body sensor networks. Advances in information sensor) and the temperature (DHT11 sensor) of any placed
and communications technology have led to the emergence of finger.
the Internet of Things (IoT). In the modern healthcare  The sensors should communicate the captured data to the
environment, IoT technologies bring convenience to doctors Arduino for processing.
and patients because they are applied to many different  The controller should send the information to the software
medical fields (such as practice). (time tracking, patient  The system should allow the admin to add nodes to the
information management, and healthcare management). Body system. Each node should be able to transmit physiological
Sensor Network (BSN) technology is one of the core data from the patients.
technologies of IoT developments in healthcare systems,  The system should receive physiological data from patients
where patients can be monitored using a set of sensor nodes, in real time.
small and light wireless. However, developing this new  The system should display the physiological data from
technology in healthcare applications without considering patients on a user interface (web page) for doctors and
security issues leaves patient privacy vulnerable. First, the nurses to monitor the data in real time.
study highlights the key security requirements of modern  The system should store the physiological data received.
BSN-based healthcare systems. The research proposes a
secure IoT-based healthcare system using BSN, called BSN-
 Non- Functional Requirements
Care, that can effectively meet these requirements [6].
 The system should be easy to maintain.
Reference [7] developed a project on an IOT-based
patient health monitoring system, developing a  The system should be compatible with different platforms.
microcontroller-based system for wireless heart rate and body  The system should be fast as customers always need speed.
temperature monitoring using a tissue-Wi-Fi module. Thanks  The system should produce reports in different forms such
to that, it can easily provide real-time information, available to as tables and graphs for easy visualization by management.
many users and send them notifications during critical  The system should be secure.
conditions on the Internet. In India, many patients die due to  The system should be accessible to online users.
heart attacks and the reason behind this factor is that they do  The system should provide easy, navigable and user-
not get proper help during this time. To provide them with friendly interfaces.
timely and appropriate help, the study first wants to ensure
continuous monitoring of the patient's health. Fixed B. System Specifications
monitoring systems can only be used when the patient is in The system is made up of the integrated components, the
bed; these systems are very large and available only in critical software that receives and displays the readings (ThingSpeak)
care hospitals. The system was developed for home use by and virtually the Wi-Fi connection that enables the wireless
patients who are not in critical condition but need timely connection between the previous mentioned two.
follow-up by their doctor or family. In any critical condition,
an SMS will be sent to the doctor or any family member, so
one can easily save many lives by providing timely service.

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Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

 Hardware Requirements
These are physical components used to develop the
device, in other words, the connection or integration of these
components is what makes up the device. These include:

 Arduino micro controller (Arduino Uno R3)

 Breadboard
 Liquid crystal display (LCD 16X2)
 Pulse sensor
 Temperature sensor
 Wi-Fi module (ESP8266)
 Light emitting diode (LED)
 Jumper wires Fig 2 Pulse Sensor
 Software Requirements  LM35 Temperature Sensor
The following are the software applications, packages These are precision integrated-circuit temperature
and web pages that were used to come up with the virtual part devices with an output voltage linearly proportional to the
of the project: Centigrade temperature. It does not require any external
calibration or trimming to provide typical accuracies of ±¼°C
 Working operating system at room temperature and ±¾°C, over a full −55°C to 150°C
 Arduino IDE temperature range.
 Sensor libraries
 LCD library
 ThingSpeak software
 Internet access

C. The Components

 Arduino Uno R3
This is the microcontroller, it has input and output pins
(6 of which can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a
16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an Fig. 3 LM 35 Temperature sensor
ICSP header and a reset button. It contains everything needed
to support the microcontroller. It is programmed using the  ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module
Arduino IDE software. This is a very user-friendly and low-cost device to
provide internet connectivity. The module can work both as an
Access point and as a station; hence it can easily fetch data and
upload it to the Internet making the Internet of Things as easy
as possible. It is programmed using the Arduino IDE.

Fig. 1 Arduino Uno R3

Fig 4 Wi-Fi Module
 Pulse Sensor
 ThingSpeak Website
This is a plug-and-play heart-rate sensor for Arduino. It
This is an open-source Internet of Things (IoT)
is an integrated optical amplifying circuit and noise-
application and an API to retrieve and store data from things
eliminating circuit sensor. This sensor has three pins: VCC,
using the HTTP and MQTT protocol over the Internet. By
GND & Analog Pin. Attach the Pulse Sensor to an earlobe or
using the ThingSpeak site, one can monitor data and control
fingertip and through the Arduino, one can read his/her heart
the system over the Internet, using the Channels and web pages
rate.
provided by ThingSpeak.

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Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

Fig 5 Thing Speak Web Page

 Arduino IDE
This is the development environment that is being used to code the micro controller; it is integrated with the necessary libraries
of most of the sensors (components). It is user-friendly, it provides error messages where needed, it saves and uploads the codes to
the board/microcontroller. It has a simple interface.

Fig 6 Arduino IDE Interface

IV. SYSTEM DESIGN and it is given out to two output devices. The first one is the
LCD so the data can be displayed for the patient to see. The
 System Overview other output is the ESP8266 Wi-Fi module that transmits the
The Arduino Uno microcontroller board serves as the data to the internet, specifically the private channel on
central processing unit of this system. Hence, the input ThingSpeak. Once the data is transmitted, a doctor who has
components of the system are the temperature and pulse data access to the private channel can monitor the patient's health
of the patient through the temperature and pulse sensors using any device that can connect to the internet.
respectively. The Arduino board processes this information

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Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

Fig. 7 System Architecture

 Hardware Design sensors are analog (continuous). The LCD and sensors are
The hardware design part shows how the hardware powered using the 5V pin from the Arduino board. The Rx
components of the system are connected. The components are: (receive) and Tx (transmit) pins of the Wi-Fi module are
Arduino board, temperature and pulse sensors, LCD, and Wi- connected to two of the digital pins on the Arduino. The Wi-
Fi Module. Using jumper cables, the LCD is connected to the Fi module only accepts 3.3V rather than 5V. For this reason,
digital pins of the Arduino Board. Both the pulse and the module is connected to the 3.3V pin on the Arduino. The
temperature sensors are connected to the analog pins of the figure below clearly shows the circuit diagram.
Arduino Board because the data being measured from these

Fig 8 Circuit Diagram

 Programming the Circuit also very important to comment on the code as much as
After the hardware component is finished, the board must possible.
be programmed. This is done using the Arduino IDE software.
The programming language for this environment is based on To monitor the data from the device, I use the
C programming language. When programming the board, it is ThingSpeak website. Once signed up, ThingSpeak will give
vital one knows each and every component in the circuit and you access to 4 private or public channels on their website.
the coding. Also, one must make sure to include all the With a purchased license, more channels can be provided. One
necessary libraries such as LiquidCrystal for the LCD and channel will be designated to one Wi-Fi module hence, one
Serial Monitor to communicate with the Wi-Fi module. It is device. On this channel, one can add several fields of data. In

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Volume 9, Issue 8, August – 2024 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165 https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG801

this case, there will be two fields, one for body temperature, the device in other to enhance. Identification features such as
and the other for pulse. ThingSpeak also allows one to add fingerprint or optical sensors can be added to the device to
features such as visualizations, widgets, graphs to provide an ensure that the device is only used by the specific patient.
easier way to monitor the patient over some time. Finally, an Lastly, in the future a website can be developed and a server
API key will be provided for the private channel. This key will can be hosted for the system so hospitals and clinics can have
be used in programming the board. a customized user interface to monitor their respective
patients.
 Connections
Basic engineering skills were used to check for the REFERENCES
compatibility of the different components (sensors) and
calculate the amount of current needed by each component. It [1]. US-Nigeria Health Mission, United States Embassy in
also involves the drawing and implementation of the circuit Nigeria, "US-Nigeria Partnership in Health". Retrieved
diagram - that is, the physical arrangement of the components from https://ng.usembassy.gov/u-s-nigeria-
-. At this part, the connections were also specified and partnership-in-health/, 2024.
implemented between the components, to make it possible for [2]. A. S. Rajasekarana, L. Sowmiya, A. Mariac, R.
each entity to communicate with any other required Kannadasan. "A survey on exploring the challenges
component, these connections were simply carried out using and applications of wireless body area networks
male and female jumper wires. (WBANs)", Cyber Security and Applications Journal,
p. 100047, 2024.
 Coding [3]. P. Patil, R. Waichel, U. Kumbhar and V. Gadkari,
This is the part that is the major aspect of the project, the "Patient Health Monitoring System using IoT,"
required codes were typed into the system via the Arduino International Research Journal of Engineering and
IDE. The code is to define the actual work of each and every Technology, p. 638, 2017.
component used in the system (sensors and the micro [4]. G. Manogaran, R. Varatharajan, D. Lopez, P. M.
controller). Some of the components may require special codes Kumar, R. Sundarasekar and C. Thotad, "Secured
that can be found in downloaded libraries. As mentioned Smart Healthcare Monitoring and Alert System,"
earlier, C language is the basic of Arduino coding. The lines International Journal of Embedded Systems Research,
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[5]. Y. Ma, Y. Wang, J. Yang, Y. Miao and W. Li, "Big
V. CONCLUSION Health Application System based on IoT and Big
Data," International Journal for Information Research,
The new system will eliminate the hassle of going to the p. 768, 2016.
hospital, waiting in line and then seeing a doctor, saving time, [6]. P. Gope and T. Hwang, "BSN-Care: A Secure IoT
energy, resources and traffic congestion in the hospital. The Based Modern Healthcare System Using Body Sensor
system will provide prompt and real-time doctor attention. Network," IEEE Sensors Journal, p. 1368, 2016.
This is a system that needs to be fully embraced and once [7]. S. Gupta, S. Kashaudhan, D. C. Pandey and P. P. S.
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and there will definitely come a time when only the automated [8]. Arduino official Website, 2024 Arduino,
aspects of life will prevail. https://www.arduino.cc/.

Considering the Nigerian society, this project is deemed

to face a number of limitations, due to the fact that it is purely
automated and requires the internet; the funding and expertise
needed for effective implementation, internet access, cost of
internet services, computer literacy, and individual awareness.

Based on this project, it is hereby recommended that; the

government should support this project for health sector
development, endeavor to make available the components for
the device, improve internet access and finally enlighten the
masses.

Like all innovative designs, further work could be done

to enhance the functionality of this system in the future. First,
when implementing this design in an actual medical setting,
instead of using a breadboard with the Arduino, the circuit
diagram can be used to derive the schematic diagram and
produce a PCB instead which will be more economical and
convenient to use. Also, more medical sensors can be added to

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