Analysis of QoS Requirements for e-Health Services and Mapping to Evolved Packet System QoS Classes

Table 4

Summary of QoS requirements for e-Health services.

Types of e-Health services	Example e-Health application	Commonly used media types	General QoS requirements
			Delay	Loss
Real-time conversational tele- consultation	Audio conferencing between patient/doctor or doctor/doctor	Audio	<150 ms E2E one-way	<1% packet loss ratio (PLR) preferred <3% limit
Real-time conversational video- based tele-consultation	Video conferencing between patient/doctor or doctor/doctor	Video	<250 ms E2E one-way (upper bounds reported as 400 ms)	1% PLR
Real-time robotic services	Tele-surgery; Tele-ultrasonography	Robotic control data, audio, video	<300 ms round-trip-time	Zero (may tolerate minimal PLR of 0.5%)
Real-time tele- monitoring	Transmission of patient vital signs and streaming video in emergency situations	Biomedical data collected by sensors	Depends on sensors and applications <300ms E2E one-way for hard real-time ECG (certain applications may tolerate <1 s E2E for ECG)	Zero
Non-real-time tele-monitoring	Transmission of patient vital signs for post- hospital home care	Biomedical data collected by sensors, context data (e.g., collected by environmental sensors)	Not Available (N.A.)	Zero
Real-time tele- diagnosis	Transfer of medical images to remote location in emergency situations	Images, text, data	N.A. (Depends on image size. Smaller images should be transferred within a few seconds.)	Zero
Non-real-time tele- diagnosis	Non-emergency remote diagnosis: transfer of medical images to a remote location where specialists analyze data and return a diagnostic report.	Images, text, data	N.A.	Zero
Real-time EHR data access	Emergency medical personnel at accident/disaster site accessing a patient’s EHR	Data, text, graphics, images	N.A.	Zero
Non-real time EHR data access/storage	Web-based end user (patient, doctor, additional health personnel) application for access to EHR during patient check up	Data, text. graphics, images	N.A.	Zero
Real-time messaging	Alarms sent to care givers indicating patient emergency	Text, small images, data	N.A.	Zero
Non-real time messaging	Automated patient alerts (e.g., reminder for check up, reminder to take medication)	Text, small images, data	∼10 s [26]	Zero
Conversational research and education	Collaborative research/education tools involving conversational audio/video	Audio, video	<150 ms E2E one-way for audio	<3% PLR audio; <1% PLR video
			<250 ms E2E one-way for video (upper bounds reported as 400 ms)
Interactive research and education	Interactive surgical simulations: remote control of instruments	Data, images	<300 ms round-trip-time	1% PLR
Streaming research and education	Education tools involving streaming media	Audio, video, data	<10 s start up delay for audio and video	<1% PLR audio
				<2% PLR audio
Interactive health information data exchange	Health portals: Web sites offering health related data	All	∼2 s/page for Web-browsing [26]	Zero
Non-interactive health information data retrieval	Distribution or diagnostic imaging textbooks	All	N.A.	Zero
Administrative and financial transactions	Patient referrals: appointment scheduling; charging and billing applications	Text	N.A.	Zero