Fusion: Practice and Applications FPA 2692-4048 2770-0070 10.54216/FPA https://www.americaspg.com/journals/show/3104 2018 2018 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr.Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India; Department of Computer Science and Engineering. GRT Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India D. D. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr.Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India D. Rajesh A wireless body area network (WBAN) is a wireless sensor network (WSN) that is essential to monitor patient health. Sensor nodes (SNs) are commonly positioned either inside or outside the patient's body within this network. These nodes have the ability to send data to the sink node if any functional modifications in the patient are observed. Delivering efficient routing and energy management of network nodes is a complex effort in WBAN. The energy efficiency of SNs is a primary challenge to the effective deployment of WBAN. To handle this problem, a new metaheuristic optimization algorithm called Elk Herd Optimizer (EHO) is proposed in this research. This research aims to focus on energy-efficient routing methods in WBAN sensors that are connected to the human body to enhance health monitoring efficiency. The proposed WBAN model includes the deployment of eight biosensor nodes on the human body. The primary objective is to minimize the energy utilization of WBANs by selecting the most appropriate cluster heads (CHs) based on the EHO. The EHO-based routing protocol showed higher performance in WBANs in terms of energy consumption, End-to-End (E2E) delay, packet delivery rate (PDR), network lifetime (NLT), packet loss rate (PLR), and throughput. The research model was validated by comparing its findings with the existing routing protocols. The research model surpassed all the comparable models in terms of energy consumption, latency, NLT, PDR, PLR, and throughput. The routing protocol based on the EHO algorithm improves energy efficiency by effectively selecting CHs and routing paths. The EHO model efficiently reduces the total time delay, which is essential for monitoring health in real time. It achieves a high PDR while maintaining a low packet loss rate. Furthermore, the EHO-based routing extends the longevity of the network. Additionally, it enhances network performance, hence facilitating uninterrupted and dependable monitoring of health data. 2025 2025 107 123 10.54216/FPA.170108 https://www.americaspg.com/articleinfo/3/show/3104