A Platform for Real-time Online Health Analytics during Spaceflight

A Platform for Real-time Online Health Analytics during Spaceflight

By Carolyn McGregor

NOTE: This is an overview of the entire article, which appeared in the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference publication
Click here to read the entire article.

What happens when an astronaut develops a medical condition on board a spaceflight during a period of non-communication with Mission Control? While any spaceflight is heavily monitored by Mission Control, there are often extended periods where communication is not possible. In this article, Carolyn McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada proposes a platform that enables real-time astronaut monitoring for prognostics and health management within space medicine using online health analytics.

The platform (see figure below) is based on extending previous online health analytics platforms known as the Artemis and Artemis Cloud, which have been deployed for multi-patient, multi-diagnosis, and multi-stream temporal analysis in real-time for clinical management and research within Neonatal Intensive Care Units. The extended platforms would be able to monitor an astronaut’s physiological data and other clinical data to be sent to the platform components at Mission Control at each stage when that communication is available.

Online Health Analytics During Spaceflight

Astronauts are vulnerable to several health risks during both short and long-term spaceflight due to weightlessness and potential radiation exposure. Some of these health problems include bone loss, muscle atrophy, cardiac dysrhythmias, and altered orientation. They also have the potential to develop a range of medical conditions beyond the impact of weightlessness and radiation, when they are not participating in space flight. It is extremely important to detect the possible onset of these conditions through predictive diagnostics, particularly when the mission involves intervals of days or weeks, and when contact with Mission Control is not possible.

This paper also demonstrates the need for pre and post mission monitoring to assure the best possible health outcomes for astronauts. By using the Artemis and Artemis Cloud Platforms, predictive analytics and predictive diagnostics can be performed before, during, and after a spaceflight to ensure the best possible health management for our astronauts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn McGregor is the Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics and Professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. She received her PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Technology, Sydney. Dr McGregor has led pioneering research in Big Data, event stream processing, temporal data stream data mining, business process modelling, patient journey modelling and cloud computing. In the early I990s she led the implementation of the first Executive Information Systems for one of the largest banks and the largest retailer in Australia. These were two of the earliest business analytic software implementations in Australia. She now progresses her research within the context of health and medicine for advanced support for clinical management and research. Dr McGregor is an international leading researcher in the area of critical care health informatics and in particular the use of Big Data in neonatal health informatics for which she has specialised for over 14 years. She has received several awards for her research publications. She is regularly called upon by the media.