IoMT challenges

Each day, more and more things get connected, creating an event bigger and bigger smart world creating more and more data that makes us more and more vulnerable to cyberattacks and intrusions.

That’s according to a?recent survey?on the medical internet of things (IoT) from Capterra, which underscored the risks to patient data and even patient care. The survey found that healthcare organizations with more connected devices––from glucose monitors, insulin pumps, defibrillators and much more––experience more cyberattacks. These devices may have unprotected security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cyber criminals.

The 6 riskiest medical and IoT devices deployed in healthcare

The findings come as the cost of cyberattacks has reached new heights. An IBM study from earlier this year found the average cost of a cyberattack is?$10 million?for a healthcare organization. Healthcare is among the most vulnerable industries for cyberattacks because of the vast amount of sensitive and personal information healthcare companies can hold.?

Medical practices with more than 70% of their devices connected are 24% more likely to experience?a cyberattack compared to practices with 50% or fewer connected devices, the survey found.

This might be the final straw. Is there no place to be private anymore?

According to a recently updated McKinsey report, The IoT’s economic-value potential is concentrated in certain settings (types of physical environments where IoT is deployed). We found that the factory setting (which includes standardized production environments in manufacturing, hospitals, and other areas) will account for the largest amount of potential economic value from the IoT, around 26 percent, in 2030. The human-health setting is second, representing around 10 to 14 percent of estimated IoT economic value in 2030.

Here are 5 trends driving a data-driven personalized sickcare or healthcare ecosystem.

Health information exchanges have fueled interoperability and demonstrated how leveraging analytics can help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.??

Apple has unveiled the Watch Series 4 at its annual event at the Apple Park in San Francisco. The new Apple watch - cleared by the Food and Drug Administration of the USA - will allow users to take an Electrocardiogram or ECG. Apple's Jeff Williams said that the the Watch can detect irregular heartbeat, low heart rate.

What's more, men, materials and machines are colliding with AI, analytics, cloud computing, fog computing, blockchain and mobile technologies increasing the levels of complexity as the cyber nervous system evolves.

Here is the basic science course on remote sensing. Here is what you need to know about the embryology.

The IoT World Forum Reference Model describes the layers in IoT system

There are four primary areas of IoT impact:

1. Enhanced business insights
2. Operational efficiencies
3. New revenue streams
4. Improved processes

The consequence is that the internet of medical things (IoMT) creates big challenges and opportunities to cut costs, improve outcomes and the doctor and patient experience. Here are some themes emerging:

1.Collisions of men, machines and materials impacting business models

2. Workforce development challenges to deliver a diverse IoMT competent talent pipeline

3. Cybersecurity challenges The increasing use of connected medical devices that link up or integrate with other systems, devices, tools, networks or services offers much promise in improving care, but also represents significant risk to network security—and most healthcare organizations are poorly protected.?

4. AI and machine learning integration

5. Creating and protecting the appropriate networking infrastructure

6. Using the IoMT to solve immediate problems v informing future products and service development

7. The battle for 5G deployment Here are 5 ways 5G will impact sickcare.

8. International business competitive issues

9. The migration of product companies into XaaS companies

10. The changing role of CIOs and CSIOs

11. Navigating the data development roadmap

12. Using the IoMT to transform sick care to healthcare by moving from reporting to prescribing to predicting to preventing

13. Deciding which data need to go to the cloud or can remain closer to the ground, in the fog. By leveraging blockchain technology and decentralized computing, one IoT startup aims to ease the management of IoT data, with a larger vision of enabling a Google-like interface to search it.

14. How to make poor data into usable data so you don't get GIGO

15. How to change dumb assets in to smart assets by converting data to value

16. How to dismantle data silos and minimize adverse outcomes to other stakeholders

17. What happens when the patient owns the data?

18. How do we create a standard interoperable platform for the IoMT?

19. How to remove the barriers to dissemination and implementation of the IoMT?

20. When does remote sensing move from being constructive to being creepy?

21. How leaders can move from fashionistas (buying the latest shiny new object and then moving on) to champions (thoughtful deployment and scaling)?

22. How to use the IoMT as part of the complex process of changing doctor and patient behavior?

23. Navigating from thinking big to starting small to scaling fast with a minimal cost of failure

24. Learning from industries outside of sick care, since sick care can't be fixed from inside

25. Changing the reimbursement, intellectual property and regulatory environment of the IoMT. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working to strengthen the cybersecurity of medical devices in the wake of computer-hacking threats.

26. Finding the right business model

27. Intellectual property issues and building barriers to entry

28. Fee for service is not built to pay for digital health, at least in the US.

29. Equitable access to underserved populations at a price they can afford

30. Data interoperability

31. Digital health ethics

32. Burnout impact factor

33. Value based care transition

34. Artificial intelligence and remote patient monitoring

Here are six reasons IT managers are worried about medical device security.

Here's how to use blockchain.

More than half of all workplace tasks will be carried out by machines by 2025, organizers of the Davos economic forum said in a report that highlights the speed with which the labor market will change in coming years.

The World Economic Forum estimates that machines will be responsible for 52 percent of the division of labor as share of hours within seven years, up from just 29 percent today. By 2022, the report says, roughly 75 million jobs worldwide will be lost, but that could be more than offset by the creation of 133 million new jobs.

A major challenge, however, will be training and re-training employees for that new world of work.

Here are the TIPPSS on dealing with the risks and benefits of interoperable data exchange.

All of this may seem a bit overwhelming because it is, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. However, those who are fighting the 4th industrial revolution to win won't wait for you to catch your breath. They are too busy measuring it via an e-meter dose inhaler, capturing your data, and adjusting your insurance rates based on the probability of how your asthma is responding to the last bronchodilator you just puffed. That is, if the global supply chain to produce it is not disrupted.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Twitter@SoPEOfficial and Co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship

This work is licensed under a?Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Updated 4/2023