Suppose you want to collect blood pressure data?

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Suppose you want to collect blood pressure data from people in certain areas using wearable blood pressure devices and bring the data to the computer system of the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) for further data analysis. In your opinion, what types of network (PAN, LAN, MAN, and WAN) can be used to transmit the data from the devices to the computer system of MOPH? Please, briefly describe the advantages and disadvantages of data transmission through each type of network.

[Auswin Rojanasumapong]

To collect blood pressure data in certain areas from wearable blood pressure devices, first, we need PAN (personal area network) to connect the wearable devices to the device that can transfer the data such as mobile phones or personal computers that can connect to the wider network (for example, paring blood pressure monitor with smartphones via Bluetooth or WIFI). The advantage of PAN is that it is usually easy to pair the single device to a single communicative device and have little chance of network conflict. The disadvantage of PAN is that it limits the connectivity to a small number of devices and has limited function in data transfer.

In case of an area that is restricted to access from outside and personal data of the patient is to be used in a limited area (eg. hospital) LAN (local area network) is a good type of network that can connect to another department in the hospital, but not to be accessible from the outside (for security and privacy reason). The advantage of LAN is that the data circulate in the system is secured (only authorized devices/users in the system can access it), but the disadvantage is that one cannot easily access it from the outside. To transfer the data to the outside, there must be one unit that can connect to the outside.

To transmit data to MOPH, we need WAN (wide area network) which is the commonly known WAN is the internet. The advantage of WAN is that it can connect with a very broad area, but the disadvantage is that the data might be accessed/edited/erased by an unauthorized user.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Your answer is accurate and comprehensive. However, when we talk about LAN security, especially in a hospital, It will also depend on your IT setup and hopital security policy. You will learn some more security techniques in the next course.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Pimthong Sinchai]

First, we have to use Personal Area Network or PAN to connect between blood pressure device and our device such as computer or notebook to collect the data from people. The advantages of PAN are low chance to have a conflict and comfortable to use during working with other device. But there are some disadvantages too. Some PAN connected may restricted area of device to connect and sloe data transfer.
To transmit the data from our devices to computer system of MOPH, we have to use Wide Area Network or WAN to transmit the data. Because it can upload and sharing data by using internet. No matter how far between us and MOPH, the data will be transmit to there. Of course, the advantages of WAN is a wide area coverage. but the disadvantage of WAN is less security that can cause some problem with the user.

Thank you
Pimthong S.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Absolutely, when we transmit data over the Internet or WAN, regardless of the method used. One thing that needs to be emphasized is data security. You will learn some more about security in the next course, TMHG 545.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Anawat ratchatorn]

This situation can be involved with all 4 types of network.

1. The first step is relevant to PAN, individuals have to collect their blood pressure results from the measuring devices to their personal mobile/laptops using PAN. The advantages of PAN are simplicity. It can be use easily, convenient. But it can be use for just a small area.

2. LAN would play a major role after individuals’ data was collected into hospital data base. Computers in hospital will connect to each others by using LAN, so data can be managed and organized well before sent to MOPH. For big organization that have more than one hospital, MAN might be involved in this role too. Advantages of LAN and MAN are its wider area of connection than PAN, so many computers and users can connect to each others with LAN and MAN. On the other hand, It’s a lot more complex than PAN. It need more maintenance and also more security needed. Another disadvantage is LAN and MAN typically can be used by internal person only.

3. The last and widest is WAN. Using WAN can collect data to MOPH either directly from individuals or from hospitals. It means that, with great application design, we can also use only PAN and WAN to made this blood pressure record happen. WAN has advantage in its wide area of connection but it should be use carefully and securely. It can be attacked by terrorists or hackers and It can be sometimes down.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Yes, I agree with you, when we talk about WAN or the Internet, both the user and the IT staff must have the highest security measures because if the system is hacked or attacked, the data being transmitted may be altered or leaked into the hands of unauthorized persons.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Karina Dian Lestari]

First, the measuring device would connect using the Personal Area Network (PAN) to a user computer. Then that user computer is connected to other computers or a hospital server using the Local Area Network (LAN). LAN have a small area coverage so the computers that are connected through LAN must be in close vicinity. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is usable if the hospital has several buildings within the same district. The computers and servers which belong to the hospital can be connected using MAN. However, MAN is getting less popular these days because many people opted to connect using WAN. The Wide Area Network (WAN) is capable to connect with a much wider network such as the internet. This can be used for MOH to collect the data from the hospitals. One of WAN biggest disadvantages is the leak of information. Since WAN is used by many people, one has to make sure that the connection is secure enough to transmit personal data.

In my opinion, with the current development of technology, the type of network that is used can be simply just PAN and WAN. PAN is used to connect the device to a user computer, then from that computer, a user can directly be connected to the internet and MOH web system and input the measurement number from the device.

[Auswin Rojanasumapong]

I agree with you about Metropolitan Area Network is less popular. I think WAN is much preferred because it is more flexible.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Transmission of personal data via the Internet, we must ensure that the channel we connect to is secure enough, for example the information sent to MOPH’s servers must be running over “https” to encrypt data.
Today, I think there are many websites that still transmit data over the internet but without encryption, they still use “http” in the browser. It is less secure.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[TARO KITA]

As others have already stated, Personal Area Network (PAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) are suitable for transmitting data from wearable device to primary data storage because of its small scale of the network, which can be set up with low cost, and also enable high speed of transmission.
On the other hand, given the expected distance, it is suitable to use Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) for the data transfer from the data collection site to the MOPH.
As the use of WAN or Internet becomes more common, strict security measures are needed to protect the data.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Absolutely, no matter what kind of network is transmitted. In addition to data security that must be always important, the speed of data transmission is another important thing. IT staff will need to monitor and tune-up the performance of the network regularly.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Ashaya.i]

To collect blood pressure data from people using wearable blood pressure devices, first of all, we have to use Personal Area Network or PAN to connect with any personal device to collect the data. The advantages of Personal Area Network (PAN) is you can connect to the device easily and privately but it has a limit of distance, speed, and limit type of devices. To collect the data from people in the certain area, we must use Local Area Network or LAN to gather all the data together. The advantages of LAN are you can easily transfer the data among network in high speed and can be use with many types of device. On the other hands, the software the develop for initial use with LAN is quite high cost. We might need Metropolitan Area Network or MAN in case of there are many branches or has a wide area of responsibility for the wider sharing of the data. According to the wider area, MAN need to increase more devices to use, so it can leads to the higher cost and it is hard to make the system secure. To send all of the blood pressure data to the Ministry of Public Health for further analysis, we surely need Wide Area Network (WAN) to complete this task. This type of network have the greatest strength of fastest accessibility, comfortable and cover a larger area. The limitations of WAN are require many devices, high cost to initial setup, and need the expert to develop and maintain the network.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Your opinion is quite comprehensive. Absolutely, WAN is expensive and requires many networking devices and specialists to develop, monitor and maintain. However, that is the duty of ISP (Internet Service Providers), for example True, TOT, AIS, CAT, etc. We are all users of these ISPs to connect our computers to MoPH’s server over WAN.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Navin Prasai]

I totally agree with you regarding the different types of networks used. PAN(personal area network) for the initial collection of blood pressure data, LAN(local area network) for collecting the data in areas, and WAN(wide area network) for transmitting data To MOHP(Ministry of Public Health). As security is concerned, we need to use email encryption, Peer to peer communication(P2P), and other methods to transmit data.

[Theekhathat Huapai]

Blood pressure data from a wearable device is a personal health record. This is a type of data created from patients. And the right of data belongs to patient. It’s private and sensitive data. PAN is a proper network type for this step. PAN is connected to different personal devices by various methods. Bluetooth and WIFI are commonly used protocols. But it does not send data to external networks.
After the patient and healthcare providers(MoPH) have agreed to use personal health records. This data is turning into an electronic health record. Then transfer to various secured networks for analysis. In this case, electronic health records will be sent to MoPH via WAN which is less secured than PAN. So we need a trusted data transfer protocol between patients and MoPH.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

No matter what type of network, data transmission security is always important. Therefore, we must ensure that the data we transmit between our machines and MoPH servers is reliable and secure.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Navin Prasai]

LAN (Local area network) is used for the initial collection of blood pressure data from certain areas using wearable blood pressure devices . For closer areas, it provides faster communication, is easy to install, and is less expensive.
WAN (wide area network ) is used to transmit data to MOPH (Ministry of Public Health) as it is convenient and covers broad areas but needs to transmit data securely.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

As you mentioned, in terms of speed of communication in a network, even though it is easy to install and cheap, however, there are many factors that affect network speed such as the quality and throughput of the network devices. Also, the amount and size of the transmitted data, sometimes It also depends on the network policies of each organization.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[chanapong]

PAN is firstly used to transferring blood pressure data in wearable blood pressure devices to other personal devices via USB cable, Bluetooth, or WIFI. It is simple to use, but limits area and devices connection to this network.

When each department of the hospital obtained the blood pressure data, LAN is used in this step to collect all data to a single database. The advantage of LAN is security, only people who have authority and using the same LAN can access it. But it has limited covered areas and cannot connect to the outside network.

WAN will be used in the last step to transfer all data to MOPH via the internet. It covers a wide area, connects multiple networks at the same time, and has more bandwidth. But security, maintenance, and setup costs are disadvantages of WAN that should be concerned.

[Pongthep Miankaew]

Yes, we can collect and store the data into a database server hosted in LAN. It ‘s a good idea that we store the data in LAN database first. We can validate and clean the data before sending to the MoPH ‘s server.

Thank you,
Pongthep

[Tossapol Prapassaro]

From my point of view, firstly, we have collecting data from a wearable device to a personal computer by using PAN or LAN. The advantages of PAN are portable, easy to use, but the disadvantage might be the speed of transferring big data and the proximity of the device. The benefit of LAN are low cost and speed of transferring data, but the drawback is a limited area of use. After that, the data from a personal computer might share with MOPH via WAN or the internet. The advantage of WAN is long-distance telecommunicate, but the disadvantage might be the high cost of network set up.

[Pisit Saiwangjit]

I firmly believe that Personal Area Network (PAN) and Wide area network (WAN) might be the best choice if I want to disseminate the collected blood pressure data to the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH). PAN allows the subjects to connect the blood pressure device directly to their cellular devices which is rather convenience and costs no money. However, due to its closeness, the information is confined to the subjects so it needed WAN to disseminate these information. WAN made information accessible in worldwide so these information can be used for research across the world. On the other hand, these advantage can fall into the pitfall of security issue and this network can not be applied to the area that lack of internet access.

Local Area Network (LAN) resembles PAN but this network covers the small area, such as small hospital, and small company. Some installation is needed, but it’s affordable. Only the organization personnel can reach to the information, however, it unable to pass these information to MOPH. To some extend, the information can possibly leak through the personnel.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is contained within the bigger area that LAN, but smaller than WAN. The installation fee is somewhat exorbitant and there is some great concern of security. Still, MOPH can directly received blood pressure data from the device if the subjects live in the network-covered area.

[Sri Budi Fajariyan]

Blood pressure data collection starts from the health service level using PAN or LAN. however, PAN has disadvantages related to distance limitations while LAN is more expensive. Furthermore, to collect data from various clinics to the ministry of health, we can use WAN or the internet because using MAN for a very large area like Indonesia is not efficient.

[Taksin Ukkahad]

To collect the blood pressure data from people in the specific area to MOPH database is complex networking platform. It’s mean not only use the specific type of network but also to integrate or mixed use of several types of network for the accurate and good efficacy of networking. For my opinion, PAN is the most suitable for collect these data as the following reason,

Firstly, personal area network(PAN) is the most suitable networking type for directly collect blood pressure data of people in the specific area because it connect directly from sender to recipient that mean shortly dead space between the device. However, due to it’s personal networking, small and not cover all of the numerous data from the people to MOPH database.

Secondly, LAN and MAN are the second network of choice in order to collect amount of data. Although the LAN/MAN are larger networking data than PAN, but for the purpose of collect data directly from the user, it’s quite not appropriate for the reason.

Lastly for WAN, I think that it’s useful network for collect the overview data in specific area, that can generate the valuable information of blood pressure. But for the set-up problem, using of large amount of budget and human resource for network maintenance, these make WAN is the last choice for use as the 1st type of network for collect blood pressure form specific area

Taksin U.

[Author]

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