Internet Of Things (IoT) in the Healthcare Industry.

The usage of the IoT in healthcare (the industry, personal healthcare, and healthcare payment applications) has sharply increased across the various specific Internet of Things use cases. At the same time, we see how other healthcare IoT use cases are picking up speed and the connected healthcare reality is accelerating, even if hurdles remain.

Thus far, most IoT initiatives in healthcare revolved around the improvement of care as such with remote monitoring and telemonitoring as main applications in the broader scope of telemedicine. A second area where many initiatives exist is tracking, monitoring, and maintenance of assets, using IoT and RFID. This is done on the level of medical devices and healthcare assets, the people level and the non-medical asset level (e.g. hospital building assets).

It is hard to overestimate the place of IoT in healthcare these days. Smart devices, wearables and the overall level of connectivity and innovations in modern medical equipment have changed the industry forever. And definitely for the best.

To say that modern medicine is striving would be a moderate expression. The progress accelerates every day ‘without any remorse’, transforming all known medical practices. Global healthcare evolves based on the latest achievements of the planet’s greatest minds and amazing prospects of autonomous, self-learning tech solutions.

Along with such rapid development, however, comes a strict necessity to keep up with the pace. The good thing is that all medical fields are either looking to or already go hand in hand with advanced technologies – from diagnostics to therapeutics, from pediatrics to complex surgery.

The Internet of Things allows setting up a centralized network of interconnected devices that can generate and exchange data within a single framework. All that data can also be tracked and gathered in real-time, which provides a passive accumulation of analytics materials. In terms of enhancement for medical facilities, this means that a regular hospital can be turned into a smart hospital.

6 Exciting IoT Use Cases in Healthcare

1. Reducing Emergency Room Wait Times

Few things are as dull and boring as a visit to the emergency room. Apart from the resulting medical expenses, emergency room visits can sometimes take hours to complete.

Thanks to some recent ingenuity and the IoT, at least one hospital — Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City — effectively slashed wait times for 50% of their emergency room patients who are in need of inpatient care.

It’s their partnership with GE Healthcare and new, IoT-driven software, known as AutoBed, that tracks occupancy among 1,200 units and factors in 15 different metrics to assess the needs of individual patients.

2. Remote Health and Monitoring

In some cases, patients don’t even have to visit an emergency room or hospital. One of the most obvious and popular applications of healthcare and the IoT is in remote health monitoring — sometimes known as telehealth.

Not only does it minimize costs and eliminate the need for some visitations, but it helps improve the patient’s quality of living by sparing them the inconvenience of travel.

If a patient has limited mobility or depends on public transportation, something as simple as this can make a world of difference.

3. Ensuring the Availability and Accessibility of Critical Hardware

Modern hospitals require next-gen software and hardware to function — some are even used to save or sustain human life. Like all electronic devices, this equipment is prone to numerous risks — from power outages to system failures — that could be a matter of life or death.

A new IoT-driven solution from Philips, called e-Alert, aims to solve that problem.

Instead of waiting for a device to fail, Philips’ new system takes a proactive approach by virtually monitoring medical hardware and alerting hospital staff members if there’s a problem.

Philips recently unveiled the product through a collaborative effort with OpenMarket.

4. Tracking Staff, Patients, and Inventory

Safety is the utmost concern of any hospital or medical facility — or at least it should be. It’s hard to maintain the maximum amount of security without the ability to track assets — staff members, patients, and hardware — throughout the building.

It’s a task that’s easily achieved in smaller institutions, but what about larger facilities that feature multiple structures and campuses as well as thousands of patients and staff members?

Many are turning to the IoT and real-time location systems to facilitate asset tracking.

5. Enhanced Drug Management

One of the most exciting breakthroughs regarding healthcare and IoT comes in new forms of prescription medication.

It seems like a work of science fiction — but pills containing microscopic sensors that are the size of a grain of rice can send a signal to an external device — usually a patch worn on the body, to ensure proper dosage and usage.

Such information could be invaluable when it comes to ensuring patients remember to take their prescriptions and even when prescribing future medications.

Patients also have access to the information, through a handy smartphone app, to track their personal performance and improve their habits.

6. Addressing Chronic Disease

Recurring health problems are never exciting, but big breakthroughs are being made in the treatment of such issues — and much of it is a direct result of the IoT.

There isn’t one innovation or device that’s helping treat chronic disease in the 21st century — it’s the combination of wearable tech, next-gen analytics, and mobile connectivity.

Utilities like Fitbit use the IoT to monitor personal health — such information can be shared with a doctor to help solve recurring issues.

A company called Health Net Connect recently established a population diabetic management program with a goal of improving clinical treatment and reducing medical costs for patients — and they’ve already produced some exciting results.

The IoT has the potential to reach every human being on the planet at one time or another in their lifetimes.

It’s gone from the modern factory floor to tech-driven hospitals and medical facilities in a very short amount of time, and it’s a development that is already transforming the industry of healthcare IT.

There’s no doubt that it will continue to do so as the technology continues to advance — but how far it will take us is anybody’s guess at this point.