Repurposing medical hardware in Thailand for a caregiver alert system with no-code application

Abstract

As Thailand's aging population places an escalating burden on its healthcare system, innovative approaches to community-based care are essential. With the number of bedridden elderly projected to nearly triple by 2030, our work addresses this challenge by repurposing existing medical hardware with accessible IoT technology. We developed a remote monitoring system centered on a mobile application built with a no-code platform, using a cloud-based backend. This enables rapid, low-cost development, placing powerful tool-creation capabilities directly into the hands of healthcare professionals. The application provides caregivers with a real-time dashboard and instant alerts to remotely track patient conditions, featuring distinct access levels to ensure data privacy. To demonstrate the capabilities, we retrofitted a standard nursing bed to monitor patient activity and elevation and digitized a blood pressure monitor for interval-based tracking. Preliminary system validation under a controlled environment confirmed high reliability, achieving 100% classification accuracy for bed occupancy and a maximum error of 2° for head-of-bed elevation. A key finding from our analysis is the significant power consumption overhead associated with IoT enablement, resulting in an increase in idle power from 0.86 W to 1.09 W, with the FMCW sensor being the primary consumer (63.6%). Furthermore, a cost-benefit analysis indicates a 67–85% reduction in implementation costs compared to commercial alternatives ($100–175 vs. >$275). This study contributes a validated engineering framework for the sustainable digitalization of legacy medical assets. By quantifying the trade-offs between power and performance and demonstrating that commodity sensors integrated with no-code platforms can achieve high reliability, the work establishes a scalable, low-barrier model for transforming healthcare infrastructure in resource-constrained environments.