H-PC: a cloud computing tool for supervising hypertensive patients

Hypertension or high blood pressure is a condition on the rise. Not only does it affect the elderly but it is also increasingly spreading to younger sectors of the population. Treating it involves exhaustive monitoring of patients. Current health services can be improved to perform this task more effectively. A tool adapted to the particular requirements of hypertension can greatly facilitate monitoring and diagnosis. This paper presents the computer application Hypertension Patient Control (H-PC), which allows patients with hypertension to send their readings through mobile phone Short Message Service (SMS) or e-mail to a cloud computing datacenter. Through a graphic interface, clinicians can keep track of their patients, thus facilitating monitoring. Cloud-based datacenters provide a series of advantages in terms of scalability, maintainability, and massive data processing. However, the ability to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) is crucial for the commercial success of cloud platforms. A novel and efficient cloud-based platform managing H-PC with QoS is also proposed in this paper.