Unlike home systems, we cannot expect the architecture of pervasive health care
systems to move toward single-server systems and have the monitoring devices
operate with minimal functionality. On the contrary: for reasons of efficiency, devices
and body-area networks will be required to support in-network data processing,
meaning that monitoring data will, for example, have to be aggregated before
permanently storing it or sending it to a physician. Unlike the case for distributed
information systems, there is yet no clear answer to these questions.