Case Study: University of Oxford achieves reduced hospital attendance, lower healthcare costs and improved six-minute walk test (6MWT) outcomes with ArangoDB

Oxford University to Reduce Hospital Attendance, Healthcare Costs and Improve Tests’ Results thanks to ArangoDB

The University of Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, working with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and funded by the NIHR, set out to move the six-minute walk test (6MWT) from hospital corridors into patients’ homes to obtain more consistent, functionally relevant data, capture Bluetooth pulse‑oximeter readings remotely, and reduce hospital visits and costs. For the server-side database they chose ArangoDB for its Node.js friendliness, distributed scalability, multi-model capabilities and SQL‑like query language that eases research-driven data exploration.

The team built an Apache Cordova mobile app (Android/iOS) and a Node.js/Express server hosted in the NHS demilitarised network, using ArangoDB as document storage behind a thin REST API; ArangoDB’s querying and web UI have been used to create views, summaries and to inspect or modify data. Although still early in deployment, the University of Oxford reports ArangoDB’s stability and responsive developer support, improved researcher access to test data, and a platform that enables clinicians to review home 6MWT results remotely—supporting the project’s goals to reduce hospital attendance, lower healthcare costs and improve test reliability.

University of Oxford

Dario Salvi

University of Oxford