Lessons learned from the development of an affordable fall detection system for mHealth

This paper discusses some relevant methodological and implementation experiences acquired during the design and development of an embedded Fall Detection System (FDS), which can be of help in order to develop efficient and safe biomedical software for mobile Health (mHealth). For this purpose, an analysis of concepts like portability and iterative design, as well as some concerns about risks and safety involved, is provided in order to address some of the current challenges in embedded software, regarding the state-of-art of software development standards and mHealth technologies. This analysis is later evaluated for a custom pre-industrial prototype of the FDS, as an example of the feasibility of the approach followed. The results obtained show that a convenient methodological process can help to optimize available resources so as to provide affordable mHealth solutions.