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An Architecture Supporting Intelligent Mobile Healthcare Using Human-
Computer Interaction HCI Principles
Mesfer Alrizq
1
, Shauban Ali Solangi
2
, Abdullah Alghamdi
1
,*
, Muhammad Ali Nizamani
2
,
Muhammad Ali Memon
2
and Mohammed Hamdi
1
1
College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia
2
Faculty of Engineering & Technology, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, 78060, Pakistan
Corresponding Author: Abdullah Alghamdi. Email: abdulresearch@hotmail.com
Received: 22 March 2021; Accepted: 12 May 2021
Abstract: Recent advancements in the Internet of Things IoT and cloud comput-
ing have paved the way for mobile Healthcare (mHealthcare) services. A patient
within the hospital is monitored by several devices. Moreover, upon leaving the
hospital, the patient can be remotely monitored whether directly using body wear-
able sensors or using a smartphone equipped with sensors to monitor different
user-health parameters. This raises potential challenges for intelligent monitoring
of patient’s health. In this paper, an improved architecture for smart mHealthcare
is proposed that is supported by HCI design principles. The HCI also provides the
support for the User-Centric Design (UCD) for smart mHealthcare models.
Furthermore, the HCI along with IoT`s (Internet of Things) 5-layered architecture
has the potential of improving User Experience (UX) in mHealthcare design and
help saving lives. The intelligent mHealthcare system is supported by the IoT sen-
sing and communication layers and health care providers are supported by the
application layer for the medical, behavioral, and health-related information.
Health care providers and users are further supported by an intelligent layer per-
forming critical situation assessment and performing a multi-modal communica-
tion using an intelligent assistant. The HCI design focuses on the ease-of-use,
including user experience and safety, alarms, and error-resistant displays of the
end-user, and improves user’s experience and user satisfaction.
Keywords: Human computer interaction; mhealthcare; user-centric design; sensor
network; nternet-of-things
1 Introduction
Smart technologies are everywhere in the form of cloud computing, edge computing, distributed
computing, mobile computing, and IoT (Internet of Things). These technologies paved the way for the
advancement of healthcare devices [1]. The IoT is an environment of a variety of things, such as RFID
tags, medical devices, mobile phones, etc. Such devices connect through unique identifiers and interact
with each other [2,3]. IoT connected devices transfer data between each other, in turn leading to new
derived data. Health care is one of the most important application areas of IoT. It provides opportunities
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
work is properly cited.
Computer Systems Science & Engineering
DOI:10.32604/csse.2022.018800
Article
ech
T
PressScience
for several medical applications, such as mobile and remote health monitoring. The integration of wearable
devices and systems in IoT help providing better mhealth services. The significant and potential betterments
resulting in improved healthcare interventions. Mobile health care or the mHealthcare devices and
applications potentially give the advantage of recording and retrieving health-related information ranging
from fitness levels and heart rates to medication dosages and sleep cycles. However, mHealthcare is
essential for user and healthcare service providers. In critical cases, if the healthcare worker is away, the
users can monitor their health conditions. On the other hand, the HCI is essential for mHealth devices,
which in turn provides the interpretation of dissemination of health services and health data. The HCI
supports the ease and efficient usage of these devices for both health care professionals (HCPs) and
patients [3–5]. The HCI with good design is a key to provide smart mobile healthcare and mHealth
environment, with long term health monitoring and tracking solutions. This HCI-based mHealth
monitoring system lays down the rules for timely and quick response for emergency and the elderly
patient care a the mHealth care centers [6–8]. The HCI perspective for smart mHealthcare system design
reflects that the HCI along with IoT cloud-based mHealthcare environment is critical due to provision of
usability and usefulness, as shown in Fig. 1. In addition, the design eschews the defects in the IoT
devices. Within the mHealthcare, the environment determines the effectiveness of the system to detect the
problems, identifies state-of-the-art solutions to the problem, and outlines priorities and resource
allocation for the betterment of health results [9,10].
Therefore, we propose an HCI smart mHealthcare model that is principled to complement the user-
centered design method and satisfaction of the end-user in order to provide a better user experience. This
promotes the development of these devices with smoother integration in order to facilitate efficient
connections among smart mHealthcare, devices, HCPs, and users [11].
The HCI issues, related to the design for usability from both the user side and healthcare providers,
comprise several design challenges. Those design challenges might be the poor design of such devices,
unawareness of the system, and compatibility of these devices. Smart mHealthcare design mitigates a
poor usability barrier, which is considered as a major adoption for mHealthcare applications. However,
the IoT devices’compatibility plays an inevitable part in overall HCI design, in which users get
Figure 1: Smart mHealthcare environment based on HCI and IoT [11]
558 CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2
sophisticated interaction with the system. Consequently, the HCI design specifically incorporates all required
key points to address UCD (User Centric Design) application [11,12]. The UCD design encapsulates major
benefits in a smart mHealthcare environment. It ensures the usability of the application and provides the
necessary information in a complex environment. Both the user (patient) and healthcare service providers
can get in touch on an immediate basis. The system can also support multiple users and provide their
health-related information HCPs. This demands a realistic and wholesome efficiency of the system.
Furthermore, the smart mHealthcare environment assures timely data delivery, good performance of
the system. The robustness of the smart mHealthcare system leverages the potential benefits in the
reduction of complexity in the HCI environment. The smart mHealthcare HCI design is based on the
UCD mitigate the reliance and reluctance on limited healthcare infrastructure and speed up the health-
seeking practice [13]. This is why good care and better health results become the ultimate goal of the
overall healthcare environment. Therefore, a smart mHealthcare HCI design should fulfill the goal of a
good user experience with a robust system for both the users (patients) and doctors. The HCPs can
monitor and diagnose the patients that have chronic health conditions namely heart diseases, diabetes,
obesity, and elderly patients. The HCPs can keep track of any important change in a monitored
condition and communicate effectively and quickly with the patient [14].
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section I provides the introduction to the HCI and smart
IoT systems. Section II describes the literature review with existing and current research. Section III
incorporates the smart HCI mHealthcare architecture. Section IV explains the suggested model of HCI
smart mHealthcare for medical devices. As a final point, a conclusion and future work is provided in
Section V.
2 Literature Review
Traditionally, research about medical device design is mostly related to usability and ergonomics as
these are important for approval from the regulatory bodies. These types of information communication
and technological applications in medical science paved the way for more complicated devices, so HCI
design stressed the interaction between computer systems and HCPs [15–17]. Nowadays, smart
technologies have led to a substantial change in employing and designing medical devices. From the
smart technology perspective, the mHealthcare services have been transformed into personalized care
delivery with the help of sensor technology, cloud computing, mobile computing, edge computing, big
health data, social networks, mobile and wireless communication technology, and health apps [18,19].
A new healthcare model is, undoubtedly, imminent for service delivery, and centers on the users and
smart healthcare services. The model with ten Ps for medicine defines the Personalized, Perspective,
Predictive, Preventive, Precise, Participatory, Patient-Centric, Psycho-Cognitive, Post-Genomic, and
Public [20]. Accordingly, it is necessary for both HCPs and patients or users that smart devices are the
main component for the implementation of mHealthcare services and models. The study in Fanos [21]
claims that the biggest IT and internet companies of the world are looking for prospective opportunities
and domains for the investment into the medical field and healthcare services, based on expertise in IoT,
AI (Artificial Intelligence), and cloud computing or mobile computing. Also, it is expected that the
mHealthcare market will reach more than 63 Billion US$ by the end of 2021. IoT-based mHealthcare
devices and market adoption will further grow up to 410 Billion US dollars. The HCI provides the main
support for data visualization, comprehension, UI control in the IoT mHealthcare domains [22].
In Solanas et al. [23,24] scholars emphasized that smart mHealthcare devices provide promising results
and help ease in managing asthma, diabetes, loss of hearing, depression, poor sightedness, migraines,
anemia, and osteoarthritis.
CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2 559
Smart healthcare systems and mobile devices can provide better and robust results unitedly in the areas
of treatment, rehabilitation, diagnosis, and measures of prevention. Further, smart mHealthcare enhances the
HCPs and patient's interactions. The interaction for the elderly or chronic diseases patients has been increased
to a great extent with collaborative care, enhanced information of patients using data based on current
conditions. This improves the system’s effectiveness in terms of usability and efficiency for HCPs and
patients [25]. In Martínez-Pérez et al. [26–28], the authors used mobile and wireless communication
technology for the healthcare services for the low cost and improved service of healthcare with flexibility
and efficiency. Remote advancements give more noteworthy adaptability and convenience contrasted with
customary arrangements [29] and the capacity of savvy gadgets to share data all the more effectively
gives the chance of far-off finding [30–32]. HCI helps the new advancements to be promptly accessible,
available, adaptable, and adequate [33]. In addition, it assists with guaranteeing that arrangements address
client issues and convey viability and effectiveness [34–37].
The studies in Webb et al. [38] suggest that smart healthcare services need the real-time processing,
sharing, and utilization of precise data. Thanks to cloud computing and wireless communication
technologies for providing seamless services and playing key roles in service delivery, sensor network, and
people. They provide details of major applications of smart healthcare systems for patient monitoring,
patient data analysis, and collection for smart and intelligent decision-making processes. Along With these
services, telemedicine and personalized medical services provide smart and mobile healthcare services. In
Fairbanks et al. [39], mobile WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) was used and claim efficient
healthcare delivery and promise low-cost prevention and management of the patient-centered disease. Their
research focuses upon the acceptance, usability, and effectiveness, and efficiency highly demands the HCI
design considering the human characteristics depending on technological and social backgrounds. It,
however, does not focus much on patient situation assessment and intelligent assistance. Moreover, it does
not focus on improving the user experience and parameters affecting the adoption of the system by both the
health care providers and end-users. This is an important factor for the low adoption rate of the current
technologies [40–43]. Thus, there is a need for intelligent mHealthcare innovation and user acceptability
with multidisciplinary collaboration among HCPs, HCI, and health experts [44,45].
3 Smart mHealthcare based IoT Architecture
Smart mHealthcare is the combination of Information Technology (IT) and life sciences for the provision
of better healthcare services and cost-effectiveness. Initially, IBM originated a strategy called Smart Planet with
suggestions to embed sensors into a diversity of physical objects. These objects are connected and integrated
through cloud computing [46–53]. The main application of this technology is to facilitate HCPs, users/patients
and establish e-Health records (electronic health records) for the intelligent monitoring and tracking of patients.
This system helps to build a sustainable ubiquitous system for smart mHealthcare and will boost service
delivery for better patient care. We suggest a design architecture with five layers for a smart mHealthcare
environment one additional layer, which is the AI layer for situation assessment using predictive modeling
and intelligent assistant, as shown in Fig. 2, with each layer depending on the subsequent layer. It enhances
the four-layered architecture, as proposed in Liu et al. [11]. Other layers include the Application layer, Data
Integration Layer, Communication Layer, and Sensing Layer.
The 5-layered design for the smart mHealthcare environment chiefly advocates the mHealthcare
scenario where the Application layer incorporates dashboards, a system for outbreak or epidemic systems,
platforms for healthcare at regional level, personal health records, and smart monitoring and tracking
system [54,55]. The application layer utilizes the websites, dashboards, IoT devices, and applications as
shown in Tab. 1. The second layer is the AI layer, which performs patient situation assessment, which
may involve integrating temporal events and communicating using multimodal dialog. The third layer is
560 CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2
the data integration layer, which deals with resources for the medical data of patients and doctors or HCPs
information, cloud computing platforms, distributed data storages, data fusion, information sharing, data
processing, predictive modeling, data analysis with the help of IoT applications and devices. The fourth
layer is the communication layer, which is responsible for all telecommunication services and access,
fundamental IoT layer. Wireless networks and broadcasting networks use state-of-the-art technologies to
provide telecommunication facilities, as shown in Tab. 1. The sensing layer utilizes sensor technologies
along with wireless technologies for the purpose of gatheing the information from the vicinity [4,56–58].
The sensors may include continuous monitoring sensors such as ECG, EEG, EMG sensors, gyroscopes,
accelerometers, auditory, and visual sensors. Discrete-time data collection sensors are there such as blood
pressure, blood oxygen saturation, humidity & temperature sensors, and glucose monitoring sensors.
These sensors may use Bluetooth/ZigBee, RFID, or Ultrawide Band (UWB) wireless technologies to
communicate with the network, as described in Tab. 1.
Figure 2: Smart mHealthcare 5-Layer architecture
Table 1: Smart mHealthcare 5-layer information architecture
Layers Application and implementation
Application
Layer
Remote patient monitoring, health records storage, elderly patients` tracking and
monitoring, Locate the physicians in the area as well as in the hospital. Smart health
monitoring, home health system, epidemic outbreak detection system. Mostly, the
delivery mode is in the form of dashboards, websites, e-Medical Records
AI layer Patient situation assessment, chronicle recognition, intelligent assistance
Data Integration
Layer
Data integration and timely sharing, cloud platforms, distributed computing, data
extractions, data fusion, statistical analysis and data analysis.
Communication
layer
Internet, wireless networks, Information and communication systems
Sensing Layer Sensors: Continuous time varying (ECG, EEG, EMG, Accelerometer, gyro, camera,
mic..), Discrete Time Varying (Temperature, humidity, BP, Blood O
2
saturation,
Gulocose..),
Sensor technology: UWB, RFID, BAN, Wearable, ZigBee/Bluetooth,
CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2 561
3.1 Application Layer
This layer is responsible for HCPs decision making and helps to communicate with the user/patient.
Also, it helps in the evaluation and realization of e-records (electronic records) and smart mHealthcare
requirements. Many types of health-related applications and keeping up-to-date e-records are maintained
and monitored. Therefore, the security provider must be aligned with the utilization of precise and
adequate information sharing among patients and HCPs. For accessing the specific information
and medical resources, the application layer provides HCPs and patients with the ease and efficient
links and connections of smart mHealth resources and service [59]. The application layer gives an access
to services namely main spots of smart mHealthcare service to the patients and HCPs, management
authorities and decision-makers, and institutional bodies. The decision-maker includes drug oversight
bodies, Health Departments and national healthcare centers, public health departments. The institutional
health bodies comprise hospitals, community clinics, regional health centers, and nursing homes [60].
3.2 AI Layer
The AI layer incorporates mechanisms for intelligent decision-making and assistance. This layer
embodies situation assessment using predictive modeling, especially focusing on the recognition of
chronicles, i.e., temporal events. The patient’s critical parameters, such as blood oxygen level can drop
silently (silent hypoxia), without showing any external symptoms of shortness of breath or difficulty
breathing. This layer is critical in terms of assessing patient situations, recognizing a course of action, and
communicating with the both health care provider and the user. The communication can be multimodal in
the form of an intelligent (virtual) assistant. This layer is supported by the data integration layer and will
support the application layer.
3.3 Data Integration Layer
The Data Integration layer helps to accomplish data processing and data fusion. They are extremely
basic but important requirements for the support of smart mHealthcare services. This layer utilizes
service-oriented architecture, cloud computing technologies, and big data to build an e-inventory for
health, where records are kept and shared with the corresponding personals. This augments the collected
data with the data seeking from other smart systems. Overall, integrated data works to support the
application layer platform.
3.4 Communication Layer
This layer facilitates both the patients and HCPs with communication services. The communication
services along with body sensor networks, internet, and WiFi services combining with the optical fiber to
provide very high-speed and reliable internet connectivity. Without communication service and
infrastructure, the smart mHealthcare system are not viable. The communications networks provide huge
capacity, robust internet facilities, and storage of huge amounts of data and sharing the information using
internet hubs among the HCPs and patients [61]. The smart mHealthcare environment demands real-time,
reliable, and secure data transmission. Thus, telecommunication infrastructure must be well designed and
robust to meet the smart mHealthcare needs.
3.5 Sensing Layer
It is the most important and fundamental layer of the architecture, so it performs the most important task,
which is the collection of health-related information from the patient, whether in the hospitals, in the elderly
care centers, or at home. This layer is at the core of IoT technology and is supported by biotechnology. This
layer, using a wearable sensor network, helps in gathering the data related to the patient health. The various
health parameters can be monitored, such as patient blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, temperature,
562 CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2
blood sugar level, ECG, electroencephalograph (EEG), electromyography (EMG), heart-beat monitoring,
and visual monitoring. The underlying technology of data transmission depends on the required power
consumption, ranging from Bluetooth/ZigBee to ultra-wideband (UWB) wificommunication. The main
communication layer receives this data and can directly transmit it to HCPs (using some application to
monitor) via the internet or store at a cloud platform (data integration level) [62].
4 HCI and Smart mHealth Design for Devices
The HCI design needs to incorporate the ease of use, including user experience and safety, patient and
HCPs relationship, legacy support, distinguish end-user, alarms and error resistant displays, timely
responses, personalization, and privacy, as illustrated in Fig. 3. The design must ensure the satisfaction of
the user and the reliability of the device for the accomplishment of the task. Because every individual
user may have a different task to perform, the HCI design of the device must meet the requirement in
terms of different user roles, workflows, system functions and dynamic environments, reception storage,
real-time information transmission, and data availability.
Safety is the foremost consideration in the design principle for the HCI smart mHealthcare system
because usability must ensure reliability, satisfaction, effectiveness, efficiency, and secure information
utilization as well as accessing. The heuristic evaluation principles must be incorporated [63]. In the case
of medical data and devices, the heuristic evaluation may create conflict with ease of use with the safety
of the device, as shown in Fig. 3. However, the ease of use motivates us to diminish the cognitive load
by use of cues to perform well or even automatically, which needs a very cautious task check. This
automatic response is also known as muscle memory and response chaining. Therefore, this type of
behavior is undesirable for safety and critical to medical devices.
The manufacturer of the device and the device user expect or intend the errors and omissions in the result
of the device. Therefore, errors can occur if safe usability is violated. The usability errors are related to HCI
design and UI design. If we take an example of the error in the visual display of UI in the devices installed by
the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) Department of US, where, the software was poorly designed that
made the doctors confused to visualize the right and left hemispheres of the patient`s brain resulting in wrong
side surgery of the brain. Therefore, false alarms play their part number one hazards of health technology
[64–68]. The false alarms interrupt doctors amid the critical tasks. The false alarms not distract
the doctors and make them fatigue but also create noise which increases stress on HCPs and the patients
[69–73]. So the HCI designer can design a better user interface and help in preventing and reducing
usability errors. The prevention of the errors can be achieved by an iterative usability test, as indicated in
Tab. 2. This also helps for analyzing contextual risk during the actual use.
Figure 3: HCI Smart mHealth model for devices
CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2 563
The simulation of the user environment or prototyping helps to predict the possible usability errors and
interaction scenario of the user to a device to explore anomalous conditions, as shown in Fig. 3 and indicated
in Tab. 2. The alert system is beneficial in the form of both sound and visual or both. This behavior is critical
when the battery level is low. However, the HCI designer incorporates the measures to remind the user of the
low state of the battery and to prevent the disabling of such alarms. The user and HCPs relationships demand
a considerable insight into the device design. The user experience has a big impact on the devices` design and
Table 2: HCI Smart mHealthcare design methods
HCI Design Method Specification
Evaluate in Use The usability evaluation is to evaluate user interaction with the device or
model, user experience. To develop iterative development and design. The
overall aim is to optimize and create ease in user experience and usability
according to the user`s needs and criteria.
Develop & Implement In the development phase, device design meets the application layer criteria
and the device must ensure good performance. The implementation of the
device must be compatible with other devices and sensors network. From
application layer to data integration layer through sensing layer and
communication layer device`s development and implementation meet the
needs and compatible and able interconnect and communication.
Design Solutions
Evaluation
Design evaluation through the best solution is the foremost need. An iterative
model and redesigning improves the solution design in each phase
prototyping and moving from low-fidelity to high-fidelity. For HCI's best
design, the iterative model follows some steps namely planning and analysis,
specification of ideas, and modeling. This leads to building a prototype and
design evaluation.
Produce Prototypes Building a good prototype of the HCI application design is suitable for the
user interface.
The design includes the user experience by the content of the application,
behavior, and form of the design. Thus, the prototype with a good content
design, interaction model, and visual design provide the satisfaction of the user.
Produce Design Solutions The design solution production related to workflow, task, and content of the
information architecture results in optimized and smart HCI architecture. This
result is the outcome of the previous phases of the iterative design. To
integrate the information with both layers sensing layer and data integration
layer, data acquisition must be compatible and relevant resources.
Specification and
Identification
To analyze the user needs and specification of user demands when they access
the smart mHealthcare services the requirement of application-layer
integration and compatibility must be fulfilled.
The demands of the end-user and stakeholders are ensured by the HCI smart
mHealthcare design of the device related to the application layer services
users and device used. Other requirements may be extracted from legacy UI,
research, interviews, observations, and pre and past case report.
Systematic Plan User-
Centric Design
For the UCD, the smart mHealthcare plan includes the analysis and
observations of the user environment and device. This manages the user
activities and history.
564 CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2
UI. Hence, the designer acknowledges all the needs of the user and HCPs. The mHealthcare design method
and steps should support the relationship of the HCPs and end users. The HCPs are the first and foremost
group that utilizes the mHealthcare devices and gains experience, as shown in Fig. 3. The HCPs having
prior knowledge of usability and design information architecture might perform well with the device, as
described in Tab. 2. However, HCPs at different levels of training and expertise might require different
UIs within the same device. The application supports the end-user requirements and feasible design in
terms of HCI mHealthcare UI. Under the circumstances, the end-user can recognize the design and
buttons and easily comprehend information at the time of rapid response.
HCPs must be ensured in a warning and possess control regarding the conditions and changes in in-
patient data. However, HCPs and end-users fully comprehend and identify the design specifications as
described in Tab. 2.
Nevertheless, the smart HCI mHealthcare design, specifying the needs and strategies of different User-
centric designs, include the end-user distinguishing requirements, in which HCI designers resolve conflicts
arising between the HCPs and UCD or end-user usability. The usability and feasibility of the HCI smart
design must meet the needs of the stakeholders, as described in Tab. 2. The end-user must not be
mistaken with the customers. The end-user might not have the knowledge or technical education about
the device and design or oftentimes are not the ones who buy such medical devices. The HCI smart
designer incorporates the knowledge of the environment where the device will be used and who the users
are, as shown in Fig. 3. The usability with robust results and good HCI UIs is not enough; mHealthcare
devices must be durable and sustain long-term stability. This provides legacy support and long life to
medical devices, as shown in Fig. 3. The design solution production, related to workflow, task, and
content of the information architecture, results in optimized and smart HCI architecture. This result is the
outcome of the previous phases of the iterative design. HCI smart mHealthcare plan includes the analysis
and observations of the user environment and device. This manages the user activities and history, as
described in Tab. 2. The medical devices` life cycle is long and its adoption is slow.
The HCI smart mHealthcare designer leverage previous workflows and legacy structures from user
history and integration with the new environment. This helps with the understanding of the users`
perspective of usability and design interface. Furthermore, this information optimizes the design and
reduces the users` error as, shown in Fig. 3. The systematic plan of UCD, based on the history of the
user, optimizes the mental models and re-usability of the systems according to the user`s satisfaction
level, as described in Tab. 2. It supports the stable transition of new medical devices and the usability of
new smart mHealthcare devices.
Time is precious and invaluable when dealing with life and health care provisions. The timely response
and concurrency should be ensured at each layer and phase. In real-time data realization, the sensor layer
must diminish the latency level in both availability and being measured value. Then, the communication
layer plays an important role in dealing with real-time data constraints in emergency rooms or
emergencies. After the communication layer, the data integration layer should provide transparency and
precision in aggregation and relevancy of specific information from different sources, as shown in Figs. 2
and 3. The timestamps and data frequency indicators might be used to indicate to the user and HCPs
about the timeliness and concurrency constraints at the application layer level, as shown in Tab. 2.
In HCI smart mHealthcare design, privacy and personalization are the main needs that should be taken
into great consideration. The smart mHealthcare device intelligently recognizes and saves the users`
characteristics, preferences, and habitual activities. However, the device may personalize and customize
the UI according to saved information, knowledge, preferences, and capabilities of the user. The HCI
smart mHealthcare designer can develop better HCI design through the consideration of all provided
human factors. It provides better UX (user experience) and better UI.
CSSE, 2022, vol.40, no.2 565
5 Conclusion
In this paper, an architecture for intelligent mHealthcare is proposed which uses HCI (Human-Computer
Interaction) based design principles to enhance the usefulness and usability of the devices and help improve
experience of both the HCPs and the patients. These design principles allow the support for the User-Centric
Design (UCD) for smart mHealthcare models. The proposed architecture enhances the 4-layered architecture
proposed in the literature and provides an improved intelligent patient health monitoring system, which has
become more critical in remote health care. The 5-layered model comprises the additional AI layer for
intelligent patient situation assessment and multi-modal communication with the application layer, data
integration layer, communication layer, and sensing layer. The success of the intelligent mHealthcare
requires HCI design principles focusing upon the ease-of-use (including user experience) and safety,
alarms, and error resistant displays of the end-user. User and HCPs relationship and personalization are
incorporated along with integration with legacy workflows and security. Also, the design of intelligent
virtual assistants for communicating critical patient care is crucial. Moreover, an important factor is
improving the overall user experience, for both the patient and HCPs. The intelligent mHealthcare system
with an actuation layer, that can administer remote care (injecting the drug, providing CPR, even
surgeries), will be more convenient and smart, but it remains as future work since it requires more
confidence in these technologie. In addition, it will also need more HCI based smart methodology
development.
Funding Statement: The authors express their gratitude to the ministry of education and the Deanship of
Scientific Research of Najran University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for financial and technical support
under code number NU/ESCI/17/107.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding the
present study.
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