Introduction

Healthcare is an area of rapidly growing importance. Many studies have shown clearly how the population is ageing, needs for healthcare are growing and yet the number of people in work (and hence paying for the healthcare system) is falling. Under current extrapolations, healthcare will increasingly become unaffordable and impossible to implement, with an unfeasibly large percentage of the population engaged in caring for others. Either the quality of healthcare provided will fall or new means must be found to care for those who currently rely on the support of others.

Wireless communications provide one possible part of the solution. Through a system of monitors, alerts and the provision of information, it might be possible for electronic systems to allow people to monitor their health more effectively or to generate better information that remote medical professionals can monitor and analyse. The benefit of both scenarios is that the users of wireless medical infrastructures would be able to stay in their homes and look after themselves for longer. A downside is that the increasing medical monitoring will uncover mild forms of sickness and ailments that have hitherto remained invisible, or at least have been dealt with by the natural defence mechanisms of the body without medical intervention. Another, related to this, is making individuals excessively health conscious, hypochondriacs in other words.