Nowadays, there is an increasing consensus that the impact of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) on healthcare organizations could be considerable due to the emergency of the Future Internet concept that is established over innovative technologies such as cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT). The FI-STAR project aims to implement the next generation of healthcare supporting applications by taking advantage of FIWARE state-of-the-art services. These are cloud applications and services for healthcare provision centred based on the needs of the patient and the healthcare professionals.

Due to issues related to personal, private and confidential information, FI-STAR has built a “software to data” platform to prevent disclosure or misuse of sensitive data. The project established early trials in the healthcare domain building on Future Internet technology. It highlights new opportunities in the area of healthcare provision including new personalized applications and services that utilise IoT enabled devices acting as the integration and orchestration strategic plan for secure future healthcare services.

Personalized healthcare using the Future Internet concept

In recent years cloud computing has been fostered as the technology to offer virtualized resources to Internet users on a bespoke manner. This includes hardware, software and platform that could be delivered as a service. For many areas such as industry, agriculture etc. this has been served as an efficient approach with regards to the minimization of operational costs and increased flexibility; yet not in the healthcare domain. Data stored in the cloud are available over the Internet and could contain confidential and private health information. Today there are various standards, regulations and recommendations such as national legislation, ISO standards (ISO 80001) and the need to comply with security standards (ISO 27000), imposing severe ­restrictions to data transfer and storage. As a result, cloud computing that is profoundly based on the Internet and openness, becomes a hurdle to its adoption in healthcare. To overcome it, the FI-STAR project designed and implemented suitable “software to data” solutions based on ­Generic Enabler (GE) technology provided by ­FIWARE to build secure healthcare applications. In future, it is expected that the FI-STAR platform

1. will highlight new opportunities in the area of healthcare provision in combination with the IoT and
2. will define the integration and orchestration strategy for secure future healthcare services.

In such cases data will be collected from the IoT devices of the user (e.g., wearable sensors that are connected to a smart device) for allowing personalized and user-tailored healthcare. The data will be processed on the patient’s smart device, and will be transferred though secure data connections to private data storage on the private cloud which makes it accessible to the healthcare application provider. The application will be composed from private cloud services in the form of ready to use Software as a Service ­instances offered by the private cloud providers.

The FI-STAR platform and beyond

The FI-STAR platform is made of a set of software modules, namely enablers that fulfil the requirements of the health domain. It makes the shift to an innovative technology that incorporates

(a) a cloud platform with available enablers and

(b) a “software to data” cloud model for secure deployment of enablers.

Since application programming interfaces for healthcare have been characterized as one of the very resistant areas to be hosted on public clouds this approach facilitates a future global adoption. Project FI-STAR, is driven by the opportunities of utilizing FIWARE solutions in the health domain for enabling adoption of new standards. The advantages are twofold,

1. it will offer new opportunites for cloud providers, web entrepreneurs and Small &Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to commercialize their products and services and
2. it will allow healthcare providers to improve efficacy by implementing services based on FIWARE. FI-STAR offers a public cloud development platform allowing enablers to be instantiated at customer’s private clouds.

The figure depicts the FI-STAR platform model that illustrates the FI-STAR use cases utilising the FI-STAR platform components as front-end and back-end enablers such as Event Service, Security Service, and Notification Service, which are deployed at the infrastructures of the Technical University of Crete and the Technical University of Berlin to build healthcare applications. The lower level is the FIWARE platform that provides the enablers such as Context Broker as general building blocks for domain specific developments.

In FI-STAR we expect to allow next generation healthcare systems to emerge naturally. Specifically, a crucial aspect of future healthcare is the personalization and user-tailored services in order to deliver a high quality customer experience that is individual-based, handy, appropriate and convenient. Solutions utilizing the FI-STAR platform support future applications that improve the quality of the provided healthcare services, while at the same time assisting the reduction of the cost of healthcare provision, for example by allowing patients to spend less time in the hospital through adaptive monitoring. In this way we can ensure continuous observation of health data that will be collected by wearable sensors while the patients go about their daily activities.

FI-STAR use cases

The FI-STAR platform has been deployed and supports advanced applications for healthcare provision at several experimentation sites that execute the FI-STAR use cases. These are:

1. will highlight new opportunities in the area of healthcare provision in combination with the IoT and
2. will define the integration and orchestration strategy for secure future healthcare services.

1. it will offer new opportunites for cloud providers, web entrepreneurs and Small &Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to commercialize their products and services and
2. it will allow healthcare providers to improve efficacy by implementing services based on FIWARE. FI-STAR offers a public cloud development platform allowing enablers to be instantiated at customer’s private clouds.

1. tele-health network for diabetes patients that use smart phones (Norway)
2. 2-D bar-coding reverse supply chain for preventing delivery errors and counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals (UK)
3. services for people with mental-health problems (Spain)
4. integrated network of different applications and devices for general practitioners and specialists to monitor real-time data (Italy)
5. virtualization of the operating theatre for reduction of errors (Germany)
6. e-health services for treatment of cancer patients (Poland)
7. cardiology real-time service for people with heart failures (Romania)

The use cases demonstrate a diverse set of ­scenarios where the platform enhances systems’ intelligence and performance. In addition, it is expected that the solution acts as a trigger for more advanced developments as the straightforwardness of the technology makes it easier than ever to efficiently deliver personalized digital experience that moves beyond the basics in healthcare provision.

Conclusions

The technological solutions based on the FI-STAR platform are reconfigurable and interoperable and accommodate future needs of the healthcare domain. It can easily include new capabilities of the IoT sensor technology and adapt to the needs of different use cases, as demonstrated by the FI-STAR use cases. Solutions are scalable with no limitations to the number of users or to the amount of data they can serve while ensuring privacy and secure data handing. FI-STAR will impact on improved utilization of human and technology resources for providing personalized medical care in real time and on effective utilization of reinforced medical knowledge in a generalized manner.

In summary the platform supports advanced features in the areas of tele-monitoring, personalization of health and care plan including communication, trust and privacy of sensitive data, knowledge creation and sharing for collective intelligence purposes, as well as decision taking processes for caregivers, patients and information providers.

FI-STAR highlights new opportunities for wider adoption of Future Internet technologies in the healthcare domain. Future solutions will aim to offer an innovative infrastructure demonstrating improved usability and adaptability in integrated and personalized healthcare, taking advantage of improved interactions between patients and healthcare professionals. This could include active participation of patients and persons from their social context, like, e.g., family, during the care process.

Further information

• www.fi-star.eu
• https://catalogue.fi-star.eu