Integrating IoT and Fog Computing for Healthcare Service Delivery

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies provide many opportunities for providing healthcare applications such as home based assisted living and well-being application solutions. Nowadays, numerous IoT devices are used to monitor users’ healthcare status and transmit the data directly to remote data centers through the cloud computing paradigm. This direct interconnection of the large amount of devices for remote storage, processing, and retrieval of medical records in the cloud demands a reliable network connection imposing many challenges related to network connectivity and traffic. This chapter deals with the transfer of the computing intelligence from cloud to the edge network. Fog computing operates closer to the user, on network edge, enabling accurate service delivery with low response time avoiding delays and network failures that may interrupt or delay the decision process and healthcare service delivery. An architectural model is proposed and a set of use cases illustrate the benefits of the IoT and fog computing integration