Looking at Fog Computing for E-Health through the Lens of Deployment Challenges and Applications

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Health Informatics
• Network Engineering

Background:

• Fog computing distributes resources at the network border, unlike traditional cloud computing.
• It offers lower energy consumption and reduced data traffic, crucial for latency-sensitive applications.
• Fog devices enable data processing close to end-users, improving response times.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present fog computing strategies tailored for electronic-Health (e-Health) applications.
• To provide the first review on the applications and challenges of e-Health fog computing.
• To identify research gaps and propose future directions in this domain.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing e-Health solutions leveraging fog computing.
• Analysis of latency, security, privacy, energy efficiency, and resource management techniques.
• Architectural overview of communication protocols and technologies from edge to cloud.

Main Results:

• Fog computing demonstrates superior performance for time-sensitive e-Health requirements compared to cloud computing.
• Identified key e-Health solutions focusing on critical performance metrics.
• Detailed architectural insights from edge devices to the cloud.

Conclusions:

• Fog computing is vital for low-latency e-Health applications, enhancing patient monitoring and safety.
• Current technologies present opportunities and challenges in security, privacy, and resource management.
• Further research is needed to optimize fog computing strategies for widespread e-Health adoption.