Data consistency within a pervasive medical environment

Within a pervasive medical environment multiple sources of static and dynamic datasets exist. A high degree of importance is associated with this data, as medical practitioners prescribe relevant patient care based on the information provided. Pervasive environments contain multiple points of access that allow medical practitioners to read and modify patient datasets using PCs, PDAs and other mobile devices. Enabling medical practitioners to modify a patient dataset introduces a new data consistency problem. Presented is the Data Management System-Data Consistency Model (DMS-DCM). It is designed to intelligently interact with servers, mobile computing devices and patient sensor nodes within a wireless sensor network (WSN). Effective data consistency is a fundamental requirement within health informatics, since it provides the foundation to ensure that medical practitioners receive up-to-date data on time every time. In a distributed dynamic environment multiple views of the same dataset may exist. The DMS-DCM employs a JADE agent platform to ensure that all relevant medical practitioners share a consistent view of patient datasets in real-time. The DMS-DCM experimental prototype is presented.