The digital health industry is surely on the rise these days, and it will be in the long-term perspective. Well, the COVID-19 pandemic has caught us all unacceptably, showing that humanity has to harness technology to fight back. As we’re now one month in 2021, we have had a chance to see how technology, and IoT solutions, in particular, actually works when it comes to fostering digital medicine. Today’s topic is devoted to seven (seven, because we believe in lucky numbers) proven ways digital health will benefit from IoT.
1. How IoT is used in healthcare?
Connected devices utilized in a hospital, clinic, or other medical facility are referred to as IoT in the healthcare industry. Smart thermostats, automatic lighting, security systems, digital signs, and many sorts of sensors are examples of common IoT devices. Some of these gadgets have a special role in patient care, comfort, and safety when used in a hospital setting.
IoT in healthcare can also refer to the integration of medical devices into a network. The terms medical IoT and Internet of Medical Things are frequently used to distinguish IoT devices used specifically for healthcare from traditional IoT technology (IoMT).
The IoT healthcare workflow is shown in full below:
⚈ A sensor gathers information from the patient, and the doctor or nurse enters it.
⚈ To examine the gathered data, AI-driven techniques like Machine Learning (ML) are employed.
⚈ The gadget chooses whether to take action or upload the data to the cloud.
⚈ Based on the information offered by IoT healthcare solutions, doctors or other healthcare professionals can make informed and practical judgments.
2. What advantages does IoT provide for healthcare?
The benefits of iot in healthcare industry are numerous. Let's learn more about benefits of using IoT in healthcare industry:
2.1 Remote Healthcare Expansion
While already living in the third decade of the 21st century, we still experience things that are hard to explain and, what is more, understand. It was even before the COVID-19 pandemic that people all around the world suffered from the lack of healthcare due to a number of factors. A 2019 survey conducted by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Management showed that out of 1,405 questioned adults from the United States rural areas, 26% were unable to get proper healthcare treatment when needed.
There are many reasons why this problem is still a burgeoning one: lack of trained professionals, the cost of getting to the patient, etc. Well, the benefits of technology in medicine are here to enjoy due to the smart solutions the IoT experts have to offer. With the help of remote monitoring tools, such as mobile software, wearable gadgets, and vitals checking hardware, doctors and medical establishments will be able to keep a better track of their patients’ health. That is, the IoT solutions would empower both patients and doctors to act proactively, preventing emergencies and exacerbation. What is more, treating chronic diseases will be easier, while the hospitals’ operational cost will go down significantly.
2.2 Preventive Medicine Bloom
The global pandemic has made it crystal clear that preventive medicine would be an apple of governments’ eyes worldwide. Namely, preventing a disease is the most effective strategy to fight it efficiently. Yet, it took us another quarantine to finally learn the lesson and apply the IoT solutions to keeping the worldwide population safe.
One of the most efficient ways to do so is with the help of wearables, small devices that can be used to track, for example, the social distance between people, track their vitals, etc. For example, in May 2020, Phillips announced the company’s success at getting the FDA clearance and FDA marking for developing and mass-producing wearable, wireless biosensors that could help monitor the coronavirus patients in the hospitals while detecting the earliest aggravations and deteriorations.
It was at that very moment that Indeema Software released Maggy following a long-term research and development phase. 15 centimeters of lightweight, ergonomic perfection, Maggy is a stylish accessory to wear and keep you and your employees safe at work. Initiated by the European Commission, the device follows the rigid provisions of GDPR, ensuring no tracking of the users’ movement. The frontal decision behind the technology is simple: when two Maggy devices overlap with the help of the latest BLE tech, Maggy keeps people notified that they violate the rules of social distancing with pleasant audio and vibration signals.
Getting back to work safely is not an issue any longer. With Maggy, it is even more than remote patient monitoring; it is a glorious attempt to make sure you and the people around you do not join the cohort of COVID-19 patients.
2.3 Automated Patient Care
Medical personnel shortage is an expansive issue, as it affects not only the folks from the rural areas but the entire healthcare industry. With the COVID-19 pandemic making hospitals overflowing with patients, doctors, nurses, and managerial staff face an insurmountable height to conquer. Cases are known when one doctor and one nurse would have to serve more than 100 patients daily. Of course, it is too soon to talk about robotic doctors and nurses. Nonetheless, the digital technology definition surely has a lot in common with the healthcare industry.
The IoT solutions are being widely applied in automating patient care around hospitals worldwide. Robots transport lab results, vitals checking devices are calling in for doctors automatically, and the number of human errors due to professional exhaustion is being minimized.
2.4 Lower costs
Healthcare professionals may keep an eye on patients in real-time by utilizing IoT technologies and connected medical devices. This translates to fewer unneeded doctor visits, shorter hospital stays, and fewer readmissions, all made possible by effective data collection and management.
2.5 Refined Drug Management
The distribution of drugs is one of the pivotal expenses in the healthcare industry. Literary tons of drugs are being wasted every year just because they have been inefficiently distributed. With the Internet of Things, hospitals, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies can launch a whole new era of cooperation, with improved creating, filling, and delivering stages of prescriptions management. Furthermore, it will boost the speed of getting the drugs needed (physicians can write prescriptions directly to pharmacies with the help of IoT), and thus mitigate the mortality rates from wrong drug intake.
2.6 Cancer Activity Tracking
Remote healthcare is, without a shred of doubt, a trend that is going to flourish because it gives people hope that medical treatment will become cheaper, better, and more convenient. Yet, there is this special cohort of patients fighting one of the most ominous diseases humanity has ever faced – cancer. It has turned out that the Internet of Things can be of great help when it comes to withstanding this beast. Having devised a smooth development process, the tech team of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center promised to come up with a wearable device that would collect and analyze a cancer patient’s data.
By simply answering a couple of questions a day, patients will help doctors gain an improved understanding of their situation: symptoms, triggers, etc. It is also expected that the device will become a revolutionary solution to tracking cancer survivors and detecting relapse cases at early stages.
2.7 Tracking Personnel
We all carry a lot of technical stuff with us these days, right? Smartphones, smartwatches, cameras, earphones are in our pockets wherever we go, and their ability to connect to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi has launched a set of revolutionary IoT solutions in digital healthcare.
One of them is the hospital’s ability to optimize the healthcare delivery process by tracking and analyzing the personnel’s movement. While it may not be a required update to the working process at the local hospitals, introducing professional synchronization to performance analysis to large medical centers is a must. A hospital with a smart roadmap, which is a neoteric IoT product, will automate the processes, thus reducing inefficiency and boosting cohesion between the personnel members.
2.8 Data Storage
Another huge benefit of IoT in healthcare is data storage. While you might not have thought about it, modern hospitals are nothing else but huge servers storing vast volumes of data. It seems like inefficient data storage and management have already brought a lot of issues to healthcare professionals. Sometimes, inefficient data storage and management can even lead to casualties. Imagine two patient profiles being confused and wrong blood type data sets being put wrongly for the two of them. The same rule applies to ECGs, X-Rays, MRIs, etc. Inefficient data storage has also been an issue from the patient’s perspective, as accessing one’s medical profile from another healthcare establishment was one hell of a mission. Wireless IoT solutions provide it for smooth and efficient data storage, management, and transfer, thus accelerating and soothing the healthcare delivery process.
2.9 Research
Applications for the Internet of Things in healthcare can be used for research too. It's because IoT makes it possible for us to get a ton of information on the patient's sickness that would have taken years to gather otherwise. This information can then be used for statistical analysis to aid in the advancement of medical research.
3. Problems with IoT in healthcare
IoT problems exist in healthcare, despite the fact that there are many advantages to employing the technology there. When integrating IoT in healthcare contexts, healthcare facilities must be aware of any potential challenges they may encounter.
3.1 Integration
Integration may appear difficult given the wide variety of devices and protocols that could be used. Connected medical devices must be easily automatable and controllable and seamlessly connected in order to maximize the impact of IoT in healthcare. If it is not all connected to a reliable IoT platform, IoT in healthcare falls short.
3.2 Data privacy and security
Hospitals and other medical facilities must abide by stringent compliance standards, patient privacy laws, and security requirements. Healthcare businesses, particularly major healthcare networks, frequently deal with the management of security for numerous facilities and substantial data repositories.
One of the major IoT issues in healthcare services is data collecting, but this is also where there is the most room for improvement. A lot of data is generated by IoT systems. It's crucial to consider the system's design and the highest priorities for data gathering and use before deploying an IoT ecosystem in a healthcare environment.
Using an IoT ecosystem to produce relevant data reports is simple once you've discussed the options and determined your goals. There are various ways to use this kind of data to enhance the patient experience in general.
3.3 Adoption
One of the major IoT difficulties in healthcare services is implementing a new IoT platform. Particularly for smaller healthcare institutions and rural clinics, the initial cost of investment and installation might be a barrier to converting an entire facility to a new system and processes.
The time and money spent outweigh the benefits of using iot in healthcare industry by a wide margin. IoT healthcare ecosystems produce better care, more efficient procedures, reductions in costs, and many other advantages.
4. Applications of IoT in healthcare
Due to its diverse range of applications across numerous industries, the rise of IoT is exciting for everyone. It can be used in a variety of ways in healthcare. Here are a few impressive IoT uses in healthcare:
4.1 SensiMed Triggerfish
The FDA and CE-approved SENSIMED Triggerfish® continuous ocular monitoring system offers information on how the ocular volume changes throughout the day and night. The system contains a smart contact lens that records unplanned changes in the eye and gives doctors useful data to assist them decide how to treat glaucoma.
4.2 Abilify Mycite
ABILIFY MYCITE is an aripiprazole tablet containing an Ingestible Event Marker (IEM) sensor that is prescribed for use in adults to treat the following conditions:
⚈ Schizophrenia treatment;
⚈ Acute (short-term) therapy of manic or mixed episodes in the treatment of bipolar I illness, either alone or in combination with the medication lithium or valproate;
⚈ Maintenance therapy;
⚈ Together with other antidepressant medications, the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD).
The purpose of the ABILIFY MYCITE System is to keep tabs on whether you've taken your ABILIFY MYCITE. The ABILIFY MYCITE tablet may take longer to detect than expected, and occasionally it may not even be detected at all. Do not take another dose if the MYCITE APP does not show that you have taken your medication. It is unknown if ABILIFY MYCITE can change your aripiprazole dosage or help you take your medication more effectively (patient compliance). It is not recommended to utilize ABILIFY MYCITE for real-time or emergency monitoring.
4.3 Sonaphi
In order to improve human performance on all levels, SONAPHI has created a biotechnology platform that analyzes human voice and provides exact neurofeedback.
The VITALITY app from SONAPHI is the first of several applications that use cutting-edge technology to analyze your voice and offer individualized support for your health and wellness. Your voice's distinctive frequencies are analyzed by in-house technology, which then instantly reports back to you with insightful information on important facets of your vitality and wellbeing.
5. What is the future of IoT in Healthcare?
Healthcare facilities will advance, providing better patient outcomes, better experiences for patients and visitors, and enhanced work conditions for physicians as advantages of iot in healthcare expands and iot healthcare devices continue to mature.
We will learn new things about medical settings, patient care, and treatment alternatives as we collect more data and gadgets. Data access will make it possible for medical professionals to spot patterns and learn about novel parts of treatment that were previously challenging to comprehend and apply.
6. Recap
From improved personnel management and up to mind-breaking wearable technologies – the IoT sorcerers will keep on spicing up digital medicine in the years and decades to come. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the need for changing the approach towards healthcare. The IoT vendors from all around the world have come with a myriad of solutions aimed at preventing and treating people. Shortly, we are going to experience a brand-new healthcare industry, and it is going to be dependent on what the IoT minds will come up with.
