Bringing IoT to Hospital Logistics Systems Demonstrating the concept

Abstract

This paper is focused on demonstrating a real testbed for managing logistics systems in hospital environment exploiting the benefits of M2M and IoT paradigms. The work presents an architecture based on low-cost devices interacting with an enterprise application server placed anywhere in the Internet following the architecture proposed by ETSI for M2M systems. Combining multiple communication technologies (NFC, UMTS, 802.11, ZigBee and 802.3) and adapting their capabilities to different functional requirements, we are capable of creating autonomous and self-managed systems. The deployed architecture integrates at end device level, a NFC reader for tracking the level of remaining stocks and multiple output interfaces for exchanging messages with the application server. The system copes with cost, availability, scalability and easy deployment requirements, being the functionality also adaptable to the requirements of potential customers.