Development of a Multi-Agent m-Health Application Based on Various Protocols for Chronic Disease Self-Management

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a mobile health application (Self-Management mobile Personal Health Record: "SmPHR") to ensure the interoperability of various personal health devices (PHDs) and electronic medical record systems (EMRs) for continuous self-management of chronic disease patients. The SmPHR was developed for Android 4.0.3, and implemented according to the optimized standard protocol for each interface of healthcare services adopted by the Continua Health Alliance (CHA). That is, the Personal Area Network (PAN) interface between the application and PHD implements ISO/IEEE 11073-20,601, 10,404, 10,407, 10,415, 10,417, and Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP), and EMRs with a wide area network (WAN) interface implement HL7 V2.6; the Health Record Network (HRN) interface implements Continuity of Care Document (CCD) and Continuity of Care Record (CCR). Also, for SmPHR, we evaluated the transmission error rate between the interface using four PHDs and personal health record systems (PHRs) from previous research, with 611 users and elderly people after receiving institutional review board (IRB) approval. In the evaluation, the PAN interface showed 15 (2.4 %) errors, and the WAN and HRN interface showed 13 (2.1 %) errors in a total of 611 transmission attempts. Also, we received opinions regarding SmPHR from 15 healthcare professionals who took part in the clinical trial. Thus, SmPHR can be provided as an interconnected PHR mobile health service to patients, allowing 'plug and play' of PHDs and EMRs through various standard protocols.

Keywords: Continuity of care document; Continuity of care record; HL7 V2.6; ISO/IEEE 11073; Interoperability; m-health.