rfid walking ecosystems to encourage physical activity submission for diabetes mine competition 2011

8/7/2019 RFID Walking Ecosystems to Encourage Physical Activity Submission for Diabetes Mine Competition 2011

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Bohdan A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH

Illya Tyshchenko

RFID Walking Ecosystems to Encourage Physical Activity to Prevent DiabetesMellitus II and to Help Diabetic Patients Dose their Daily Activity

Submission for Diabetes Mine Competition 2011



Bohdan A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH | [email protected]

RFID Ecosystems for Walking to Prevent Diabetes and to Help Diabetic Patients Dose theirWalking

Submission for Diabetes Mine Competition

Our primary objective in entering the Diabetes Mine competition is to encourage increased

walking and other ambulatory activity on a population wide scale in order to help prevent obesity and

Type II diabetes mellitus.

The secondary and equally important benefit of this effort will be to enable physicians to

encourage, prescribe, and monitor the walking or other ambulatory activity of their diabetic patients.

This combined with other technologies should make it easier for patients to control their diabetes

mellitus. Vitally important lifestyle interventions consisting of regular exercise and better nutrition

enable diabetic patients to control their blood sugar, maintain their weight, reduce their medication

needs and in some cases even reverse their diabetes mellitus.

We propose to encourage this walking by installing user friendly RFID (radio frequencyidentification) based ecosystems in public pedestrian areas within which walkers will be able to

effortlessly keep track of the walking they do on a given day, over a week, month, or even a year.

Given that the majority of the American population is now overweight, obese, and underactive with as

much as a third of the current population to become diabetic in its lifetime, the widespread availability

of such RFID ecosystems in public spaces to encourage walking makes sound public health and

economic sense.

RFID reader enhanced running courses already enable thousands of runners to compete

simultaneously in long distance and marathon races without the need to carry any computers, apps,

cellphones, or GPS devices. The runners carry only simple RFID tags attached to their shoelaces.

We propose that such RFID reader enhanced courses become permanent, more numerous and be

adapted so that non-athletes be able to cover and measure shorter distances. Use of our proposed

algorithmic software would turn these courses into genuine walking ecosystems. These ecosystems

would enable walkers to walk longer or shorter distances, in different and opposite directions, and to

take different routes to the same or different locations. This walking could take place at any time of

day convenient to the walker. By carrying later generation active tags powered by thin film batteries,

walkers will be able to walk in a broad range of terrains, even indoors. Automatic uploading of this

information in real time to central servers will free the walker from having to turn on applications, set

programs, or input data of steps walked, etc. to measure and document his walking. Central servers

will automatically store and organize the walking data and provide feedback via voice mail, via text

messages, via dedicated websites, or via regular mail statements. The walking measurements could

also be sent in real time to electronic personal and medical records or, if so desired, even to




Facebook personal profiles. All the information about walking in this system would be stored centrally

making it extremely difficult to violate security. Such a high level of security could even enable the

implementation of incentives and rewards for meeting walking targets. RFID tags contain only serial

numbers so preferred levels of anonymity, privacy, HIPAA, or social interaction can be maintained.

Since the end users need carry only inexpensive tags rather than electronic devices, the system is

inexpensive and can be used by anyone regardless of age or computer literacy. Since RFID tags are

small, they can be integrated into seemingly ordinary identification cards, key fobs, even jewelry.

The proposed RFID ecosystems could be located in parks, along lake and river fronts, along

commuting corridors, in walk to school zones, in corporate parks, in sightseeing areas, in shopping

malls, in amusement parks, and retirement communities. Since RFID tags can be integrated into

contactless public transport fare cards, commuting to work could turn into a genuine walk and ride

experience. Such integration could encourage the commuter to increase his daily walking activity by

encouraging walking to more distant transit stops and getting off transit early in order to walk more on

a regular daily basis. RFID ecosystems can also be installed in areas with a higher prevalence of

obesity or diabetes mellitus in order to encourage community walking programs. These conveniently

located ecosystems would enable walkers to perform, to measure and to quantify their activity as part

of their daily routine, everyday chores, commute to work or school, etc. By making the measurement

of physical activity convenient, almost anyone would be able to set, measure, and achieve, without

hassle, their target exercise goals just by walking and carrying a RFID tag.

One time registration for the system could be done at school, at work, in a doctor’s office, in a

public library, or at home. The measurement of walking done in public places could result inindividual, group, or community walking competitions, games, and events over days, weeks, months

or even a year.

The logic of our approach is supported by the fact that Albuquerque (NM) has instituted

prescription paths in many parts of the city. The Mayo Clinic has installed one mile, 5K and 10K

walking courses in the highly frequented Mall of America (MN). These locations would benefit from

our adaptation of RFID technology. A variety of parks in Europe and Latin America have installed

simple permanent lap (not ecosystem) RFID enhanced running tracks. London’s Regents Park, with

a RFID enhanced lap counting circular running track, even gives out RFID tags to those who show up

for orientation sessions.

Our technology is remarkably inexpensive since the end user need carry only a tag; the

system is easy to implement and evaluate. Its benefits, though available to the general population for

the purpose of prevention would be of particular benefit to diabetics in the management of their




diabetes. Its effectiveness would be measured by the improved fitness, by the improved glucose

control, and by the prevention of the diabetic complications in communities of diabetic patients.

Since this technology is remarkably easy to use it is scalable to the population at large and its

efficiency can be measured directly by the number of walkers using it, by the total distance walked, by

the adoption of similar walking ecosystems around the USA, around the world and by the willingness

of insurance companies, businesses, and government to adopt this technology to encourage walking

on a population-wide scale to stem the tide of the fifth epidemiologic transition, the age of obesity and

inactivity. Because of its simplicity, ease of use, and low cost, our technology to encourage walking

may well be the only one scalable to hundreds of millions of people in both rich and poor countries in

which obesity and type II diabetes mellitus have now affected hundreds of millions.

Two active RFID tags (L and R); RFID reader (C)

GSM/EVDO modemRFID reader

Cellular operator service

Cellular network



Cellular network

Cellular network

Internet

Application server

Web server

Database server

Data processing server

Embeddedsystem

Embeddedsystem

Embedded

system

Users

Mobile users

Physicians

ID 1

ID 1

ID 1

ID 2

ID 2

ID3

ID 4

ID 5

Client side(RFID tags)

Sensor side(RFID readers’ setups)

Abstract side(cellular network, Internet)

Customer side(users that access tracking information)

Server side(processing and providing

access to tracking information)

The walkers are represented by RFID tags on the left. RFID readers are part of an embedded system to theright. In this illustration, the connections from the readers to the servers is via a cellular network.. The serverson the right provide the data processing units which receive the information from the readers. The databaseserver stores the information. The application server interprets and adapts the information to other uses suchas web based inspection, social interactions, integration with public transport, school identification, reward cardsystems, and study of cumulative data. The web server provides the information for website viewing clientsand/or customers. In this illustration the servers communicate with the customers through the Internet.

Contact: Bohdan A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH, [email protected] at 1-212-785-4170

mailto:[email protected]







This represents, in highly schematic form, a walking to school program RFID ecosystem. RFID readers arepresent at decision points. The ecosystem would also work in the walking to home direction. There is alsonothing in this ecosystem to keep the client from walking from the west or east or from east to the west past theschool to the other end of the ecosystem. There is nothing to keep the client from taking a short cut across apark and getting credit for it as long as the server is programmed to take that walking into account. The pathsoutlined here reflect simply the city streets. In order to increase the options for documentable walking, thedensity of the RFID readers can be increased to, in effect, create a veritable grid.

City

Station

City

Condos

Skyscraper

School

Town hall

This city grid provides decision points at every intersection. Decision points need not be present at everyintersection. There could also be decision points only along a designated pedestrian walk.

Contact: Bohdan A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH, [email protected] at 1-212-785-4170





rfid walking ecosystems to encourage physical activity submission for diabetes mine competition 2011

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