  The use of Internet connectivity for remote patient monitoring is often
unsuitable for rural communities where Internet infrastructure is lacking, and
power outages are frequent. This paper explores the rural connectivity problem
in the context of remote patient monitoring and analyzes the feasibility of
utilizing a delay tolerant network (DTN) architecture that leverages the social
behaviors of rural community members to enable out-of-range monitoring of
patients in rural communities without local transportation systems. The
feasibility is characterized using delivery latency and delivery rate with the
number of participants and the number of sources as variables. The architecture
is evaluated for Owingsville, KY using U.S. Census Bureau, the National Cancer
Institute's, and IPUMS ATUS sample data. The findings show that within a 24
hour window, there is an exponential relationship between the number of
participants in the network and the delivery rate with a minimal delivery of
38.7%, a maximal delivery rate of a 100% and an overall average delivery rate
of 89.8%.
