Although remote sensing medical devices have existed for more than two decades, and telemedicine has been around for a while the underlying technology has developed 100 times. No more 2G mobile network and doctor visits. Now we have an interconnected network of smart devices capable of making decisions, work as groups, and send information to the cloud — Internet of Things.
In this article, we will understand the Internet of Things (IoT) in Healthcare.
- Internet of Things in Healthcare.
- What is IoT and its importance in healthcare?
- Examples of IoT in healthcare
- How does it work in Healthcare?
- IoT Devices in Healthcare.
- IoT’s Benefits in Healthcare.
- Challenges in Healthcare.
- Future in Healthcare.
IoT in Healthcare
The market of IoT in healthcare is growing day by day and it is predicted to exceed $10 billion by 2024, according to research. This growth forecast is also impacted by other important technologies. IoT is slowly getting traction and evolving beside the new ultra-fast 5G mobile wireless, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Big Data. Arranging these powerful technologies with the Internet of Things will likely revolutionize the healthcare industry. IoT in healthcare using 5G wireless and AI could, for example, completely change the way patients are monitored and treated remotely.
What is IoT and its importance in healthcare?
In a nutshell, IoT is the theory created around the idea of full ubiquitous computing, which is the processing of information linked with external activity or objects. Ubiquitous computing involves connecting electronic devices with microprocessors and sensors to talk to each other.
“IoT is a ubiquitous network except that all of those electronic devices are connected to the Internet.”
IoT in the healthcare industry is a great example of this ubiquitous computing. For example, hundreds of smart electronic devices can be set up in a hospital to observe patients’ health status 24/7, talk to each other, make decisions, and upload all the information to a healthcare cloud platform.
Examples of IoT in healthcare
How does it efficiently in healthcare? Let’s explore three workable Internet of Things healthcare examples below.
- Sensing and uploading up-to-date patient information to the cloud in emergencies, from the ambulance or even from home.
- Medical devices capable of doing self-maintenance. IoT healthcare devices will sense their components, detect low thresholds, and interact with medical personnel and manufacturers.
- IoT and wearables can help home patients and elderly interact directly with a healthcare facility.
- Telemedicine can be considered a “primitive” form of an Internet of Things in healthcare example. With IoT, a patient can be observed and in some cases treated remotely through video cameras and other electronic actuators.
How does it work in Healthcare?
To learn how the Internet of Things in Healthcare works, let’s see how IoT works in usual. As explained above, an IoT unit can be considered as a device with a sensor that can interact with the physical world and send information to the Internet.
“In healthcare, these devices can collect different patient data and receive inputs from health practitioners.”
An Internet of Things Healthcare example is continuous glucose monitoring for insulin pens that works efficiently for patients with diabetes.
All these devices can communicate with each other and in some cases take important actions that would provide timely help or even save a life. For example, an IoT healthcare device can make intelligent decisions like calling the healthcare facility if an aged person has fallen. After collecting passive data, an IoT healthcare device would send this critical information to the cloud so that doctors can act upon it, view the general patient status, see if calling an ambulance is needed, what type of help is required, and so on.
Thus, the Internet of Things Healthcare can greatly improve not only a patient’s health and help in crucial situations but also the productivity of health employees and hospital workflows.
How IoT helps in healthcare
Let’s explore an IoT healthcare workflow example:
- A sensor collects data from a patient or a doctor/nurse inputs data.
- An IoT device examines the collected data with the help of AI-driven algorithms like machine learning (ML).
- The device decides whether to act or send information to the cloud.
- Doctors, health practitioners, or even robots are enabled to make actionable and knowledgeable decisions based on the data provided by the IoT device.
IoT Devices in Healthcare
Although not all IoT devices should have a sensor, they at least need to have a radio and a given TCP/IP address to enable communication with the Internet. As long as a device has access to the Internet, it can be considered an IoT device.
So, every smartphone is an IoT device. A smartphone with the right set of healthcare apps can help you identify diseases and improve your health. Some examples of these are skin cancer detection apps that use your camera and AI-driven algorithms to map moles on your skin. Other examples would be sleep, yoga, fitness, and pill management apps.
Still, smartphone is a smartphone. Monitoring healthcare is not its primary application. A dedicated healthcare IoT device can do significantly more.
- Smartwatch – Wearables sold at consumer electronics stores come with a sensor and Internet connection. Some of them (like iWatch Series 4) can even monitor your heart rate, control diabetes, help in speech treatment, aid in improving posture, and detect seizures.
- Insulin Pens and Smart CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) – These devices can monitor blood glucose levels and send the data to a dedicated smartphone app. Patients with diabetes can use these devices to trace their glucose levels and even send this data to a healthcare facility.
- Brain Swelling Sensors – These tiny sensors are implanted within the cranium to help brain surgeons keep track of severe brain injuries and avoid further deathly swelling. They measure pressure on the brain and can dissolve by itself in the body without further medical interference.
- Ingestible Sensors – Prescribed medication is swallowed with a tiny digestible medical sensor that sends a small signal to a wearable receiver on the patient, which, in turn, sends data to a dedicated smartphone app. This sensor can help doctors ensure patients take their medication at all times.
- Smart video pills – A smart pill can travel through a patient’s intestinal tract and take pictures as it travels. It can then send the received information to a wearable device, which in turn would send it to a dedicated smartphone app (or straight to the app). Smart pills can also help visualize the gastrointestinal tract and colon remotely.
IoT’s Benefits in Healthcare.
IoT in the healthcare industry has innumerable benefits. However, the most important is that treatment results can be significantly improved or maximized, as the data gathered by IoT healthcare devices are highly precise, enabling informed decisions.
Health facilities and practitioners will be capable of reducing errors because all patient information can be measured quickly and sent to a board of doctors or a healthcare cloud platform. AI-driven algorithms running on these IoT devices could also help make clear decisions or suggestions based on existing data.
Another great benefit of IoT in healthcare is reduced costs. With IoT in healthcare, non-critical patients will be able to stay at home while various IoT devices monitoring him and send all important information to the health facility’s meaningless hospital stays and doctor visits.
With detailed information received from lots of IoT devices, health facilities will also be able to improve their disease management. They’ll have more data in real-time coming in than ever before. Still, this involves several challenges.
Challenges in Healthcare.
Although IoT in healthcare provides many great advantages, some challenges need to be solved. The Internet of Things Healthcare solutions cannot be considered for implementation without accepting these challenges.
- Massive inputs of generated data – Having thousands of devices in a single healthcare facility and a thousand more sending information from remote locations — all in real-time — will produce enormous amounts of data. The data produced from IoT in healthcare will likely make storage requirements grow much higher, from Terabytes to Petabytes. If used properly, AI-driven algorithms and cloud can help make sense of and organize this data, but this program needs time to mature. So, creating a large-scale IoT healthcare solution will take a lot of time and effort.
- IoT devices will increase the attack surface – IoT healthcare brings numerous advantages to the industry, but they also create numerous unprotected security spots. Hackers could log into medical devices connected to the Internet and steal the information — or even modify it. They can also take a step further and hack an entire hospital network, tainting the IoT devices with the infamous Ransomware virus. That means the hackers will hold patients and their heart-rate monitors, blood pressure readers, and brain scanners as hostages.
- Existing software infrastructure is obsolete – IT infrastructures in many hospitals are obsolete. They will not allow for the proper integration of IoT devices. Therefore, healthcare facilities will need to renew their IT processes and use new, more modern software. They will also need to take advantage of virtualization (technologies like SDN and NFV), and ultra-fast wireless and mobile networks like Advanced LTE or 5G.
The Internet Of Medical Things Is The Future Of Healthcare why?
IoT in the healthcare industry can change components, such as medical gadgets or services. It can also improve healthcare applications, such as telemedicine, patient monitoring, medication management, imaging, and overall workflows in hospitals. It can also create new ways of treating various diseases.
The Internet of Things for healthcare will not only be used by hospitals or facilities, but also by surgical centers, research organizations, and even governmental institutions.
Future in Healthcare.
IoT in the healthcare industry does not stand alone. All IoT devices and their networks need to be connected with other technologies to help healthcare facilities transform in a meaningful way. As discussed before, IoT will revolutionize the healthcare industry but it also needs data, high-speed communication, and proper security and compliance.
5G will provide the ultra-low latency speeds and movement that the IoT in the healthcare industry needs. In turn, AI-driven solutions will make sense of the data lakes gathered from a collection of devices. Big Data plans will use such AI algorithms to analyze data in real-time and make important health decisions. Virtualization will help to reduce or get rid of old infrastructure in hospitals.
IoT is already using most of these technologies to help healthcare evolve, and this evolution will only continue. Sooner than later, healthcare and the Internet of Things will become inseparable, completely changing how we approach our healthcare.
