Healthcare in the Home

With each passing day, the demand for Healthcare solutions in the home is increasing:

• As people become increasingly conscious of health and lifestyle, we find that we are living with an ageing population, with more people requiring care and monitoring at home
• We know that many hospitalised patients could recover more quickly in their own homes, but they need to be monitored during this time
• Advancements in medicine are resulting in more people with long-term illness and disability being able to find a new quality of life, but continued monitoring for early re-diagnosis is important

There exists a growing necessity for a flexible and integrated approach to health and social care services, to help people to stay healthy, safe and in control within their own homes.

At NXP, this is just another thread of our Smart Home vision. As our homes become more interconnected, we equip Healthcare solutions providers with the low-power wireless infrastructures and gateway technologies that allow them to transfer real-time data from mobile patients out to General Practitioners, Clinicians, Primary Care Trusts, family members, friends, and social support networks.

Our technologies enable the care of patients in the home to become a reality.

Key applications

• Heart-rate monitoring
• Blood-pressure monitoring
• Fall sensing
• Mobility sensing
• Emergency call alarms
• Blood-sugar monitoring

Wireless solution

Our JN51xx wireless microcontrollers, combined with our wireless network protocol stacks, provide the platform for wireless Healthcare solutions in the home.

The JN51xx wireless microcontrollers are feature rich devices, that in addition to an IEEE802.15.4 compliant 2.4GHz radio and 32-bit CPU, contain a wealth of on-chip peripherals to support a diverse range of Healthcare application. These include 21 GPIO, ADC, DAC, PWM, timers, UART and SPI. Should you run short of peripherals, then our industry standard I²C port combined with any of the devices from our I²C interface and connectivity portfolio provides an optimal way for you to expand or enhance I/O capabilities to your individual requirements.

The ultra low power consumption of the JN51xx wireless microcontrollers allows the development of portable battery-powered devices such as heart monitors, blood-pressure monitors and emergency alarms. The integrated 32-bit CPU allows the processing of sensor data prior to data transmission. It could typically be used to omplement audio compression techniques in a solution that requires for a voice channel to be established between a patient and a call-centre operator.

Our wireless network protocol stacks, built on the IEEE802.15.4 standard, offer unrivalled levels of performance, functionality, flexibility and robustness.

• JenNet facilitates easy-to-use, highly robust, low-cost networking
• JenNet-IP is an enhanced 6LoWPAN network solution that provides IP-based networking to serve the 'Internet of Things'
• ZigBee Home Automation provides multi-vendor product interoperability

Each stack is developed in-house and is highly optimised to the JN51xx platform. Simple C-based APIs are provided to streamline software development.