LTE proximity discovery for supporting participatory mobile health communities

Advancements in mobile communication technologies and the continuously increasingly diffusion of smartphones equipped with several physical and virtual sensors and with different network support are promoting novel mobile healthcare scenarios where patients with critical physical/behavioral conditions can be provided with anywhere and anytime care assistance even while on the move. In particular, this recent technology evolution simplifies the formation of mobile health communities (MHC) for prompt assistance in the case of emergency situations, where a MHC can be defined as a dynamic team of care givers formed by passing by mobile users physically co-located with the patient in need of help while on the move. Crowdsensing, through the massive use of smartphone sensors, further enhances the potential of supporting participatory management of MHCs for emergency scenarios. This paper presents a crowdsensing-based middleware called COLLEGA that provides several management functionalities for supporting prompt assistance to mobile patients in the case of a medical emergency. In particular, the paper claims to exploit the novel emerging LTE Direct technology to facilitate dynamic formation of MHCs and data dissemination. Our LTE-based support for participatory MHCs is described and experimental results showing the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach are also provided.