Study of Middleware for Internet of
Healthcare Things and Their Applications
Ghofrane Fersi
1,2(B)
1 Laboratory of Development and Control of Distributed Applications (ReDCAD),
University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
ghofrane.fersi@redcad.org
2 Higher Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology of Sousse (ISSAT),
University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia
Abstract. The rapid proliferation and miniaturization of the wireless
and embedded devices has led to the invasion of the Internet of Things
in many domains and has reached the healthcare sector to form what
is called the Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT). The growing number of the applications in the Internet of Healthcare Things as well as
the overwhelming number of heterogeneous medical devices that should
interact in this network has put the researchers and developers in front
of lot of challenges: How to facilitate the implementation of the various
healthcare applications? And how to ease the integration of new devices
and make their interoperation a transparent task for the developers? To
fulfill these requirements, lot of middleware have been proposed. In this
paper we provide a complete study on the existing middleware for IoHT
and specify their applications, we propose a taxonomy for them and we
present their main advantages and drawbacks.
Keywords: Middleware · Healthcare · Internet of Healthcare Things
1 Introduction
The interest to the healthcare digitalization is growing during these last years
due to its multiple benefits [1]. Effectively, there is a growing need to monitor the
patients behavior and/or status and notify the doctors and the relatives of any
danger according the patient’s health. Such tight monitoring cannot be ensured
by nurses or caregivers. Internet of Things (IoT) represents here a suitable and
efficient solution for this [2]. Effectively, IoT is made up of tiny devices that can
easily communicate and cooperate together to achieve a common task. This is
exactly what is needed in healthcare: tiny devices that might be portable (off the
body), wearable (on the body) or implantable (in the body), track the patient’s
status. The application of IoT in the healthcare is called Internet of Healthcare Things. This new concept has certainly improved the healthcare services
and increased its efficiency. However, it is facing lot of challenges. Effectively,
c
The Author(s) 2020
M. Jmaiel et al. (Eds.): ICOST 2020, LNCS 12157, pp. 223–231, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51517-1_18
Healthcare Things and Their Applications
Ghofrane Fersi
1,2(B)
1 Laboratory of Development and Control of Distributed Applications (ReDCAD),
University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
ghofrane.fersi@redcad.org
2 Higher Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology of Sousse (ISSAT),
University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia
Abstract. The rapid proliferation and miniaturization of the wireless
and embedded devices has led to the invasion of the Internet of Things
in many domains and has reached the healthcare sector to form what
is called the Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT). The growing number of the applications in the Internet of Healthcare Things as well as
the overwhelming number of heterogeneous medical devices that should
interact in this network has put the researchers and developers in front
of lot of challenges: How to facilitate the implementation of the various
healthcare applications? And how to ease the integration of new devices
and make their interoperation a transparent task for the developers? To
fulfill these requirements, lot of middleware have been proposed. In this
paper we provide a complete study on the existing middleware for IoHT
and specify their applications, we propose a taxonomy for them and we
present their main advantages and drawbacks.
Keywords: Middleware · Healthcare · Internet of Healthcare Things
1 Introduction
The interest to the healthcare digitalization is growing during these last years
due to its multiple benefits [1]. Effectively, there is a growing need to monitor the
patients behavior and/or status and notify the doctors and the relatives of any
danger according the patient’s health. Such tight monitoring cannot be ensured
by nurses or caregivers. Internet of Things (IoT) represents here a suitable and
efficient solution for this [2]. Effectively, IoT is made up of tiny devices that can
easily communicate and cooperate together to achieve a common task. This is
exactly what is needed in healthcare: tiny devices that might be portable (off the
body), wearable (on the body) or implantable (in the body), track the patient’s
status. The application of IoT in the healthcare is called Internet of Healthcare Things. This new concept has certainly improved the healthcare services
and increased its efficiency. However, it is facing lot of challenges. Effectively,
c
The Author(s) 2020
M. Jmaiel et al. (Eds.): ICOST 2020, LNCS 12157, pp. 223–231, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51517-1_18