Healthcare services are more expensive than ever, the global population is aging, and the number of chronic diseases is on the rise. The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly gaining acceptance in all areas of life, including healthcare. IoT in healthcare applications helped remote monitoring and seamless health management.

 

According to a research study, The global internet of things (IoT) in healthcare market size is expected to experience significant growth by reaching USD 446.52 billion by 2028, while exhibiting an astounding CAGR of 25.9% between 2021 and 2028.

 

IoT is gradually gaining acceptance and expanding with new ultra-fast 5G mobile wireless, AI, and Big Data. The combination of these modern technologies and the Internet of Things will almost certainly alter the healthcare business. IoT will benefit patients’ health as well as increase healthcare staff productivity.

Benefits of IoT in Healthcare?

  • Reporting and Monitoring
    Through connected devices, it becomes easy for doctors and physicians to monitor patients’ health. Also, real-time monitoring can save lives in a medical emergency like diabetic attacks, heart failure, asthma attacks, etc.
  • Analysis and Data Assortment
    IoT devices can collect, report and analyze the data in real-time while cutting the need to store the raw data. It collects a massive amount of data about patients’ illnesses that might take days to collect manually. The data collected through these devices can be used for statistical study.
  • Alerts and Tracking
    Medical IoT devices and applications can gather vital data and transfer it to doctors and health personnel for real-time tracking. Also, these mobile applications and IoT devices can also send notifications regarding a patient’s critical conditions irrespective of place or time.
  • Cost Reduction
    By using IoT-enabled devices, doctors can monitor patients in real-time. Thus, the process of real-time monitoring at distinct places can help patients cut down not-so-necessary visits to doctors, hospital stays, and re-admissions.
  • Connectivity and Affordability
    IoT in healthcare protocols like Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, Z-wave, ZigBee, and others enables operability, machine-to-machine communication, information exchange, and data movement that ultimately makes the healthcare facility delivery effective and efficient.
  • Faster Disease Diagnosis
    Due to continuous patient monitoring and real-time data tracking, doctors can diagnose/detect disease at an early stage or even before the disease develops based on symptoms.
  • Drugs and Equipment Management
    Management of drugs and medical equipment is one of the major challenges faced by the healthcare industry. This challenge can be cracked with the help of IoT devices.

Internet of Things Healthcare Examples & Applications

  • Glucose Monitoring

IoT glucose monitoring devices with embedded or wearable body sensors helps minimize the risk of death by diabetes by addressing these challenges by automating glucose levels in patients.

  • Heart Rate Monitoring

To monitor heart rating and detect heart rate & pulse in heart patients, varieties of IoT medical devices are available.

  • Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote monitoring IoT medical devices play an effective role because they automatically collect health metrics such as; temperature, heart rate, blood pressure etc.

  • Connected Contact Lenses

Smarty connected contact lenses combine contact lenses and sensors that turn your eyes into a powerful tool for digital interactions and detecting eye disease symptoms.

  • Depression and Mood Monitoring

Mood-aware IoT devices and smartwatches help predict the depression level of the users by monitoring and analyzing blood pressure and heart rate.

  • Hand Hygiene Monitoring

Different types of smart hand hygiene monitoring IoT devices instruct the user how best to sanitize their hands, a specific danger for a specific patient.

  • Connected Inhalers

IoT connected inhaler is a sensor connected inhaler that alerts the patient by monitoring the frequency of attacks and triggering factors to prevent asthma attacks.

  • Hearing Aid

IoT hearing aid is helpful in listening to that sound in a noisy environment and listening to several conversations at the same time.

  • Parkinson’s Patient Monitoring

Parkison’s patient and disease monitoring IoT sensors are dedicated to collecting data about Parkinson’s symptoms.

IoT in Healthcare: Process

A simple approach is used to collect data from the device, which is detailed below.

  • An IoT-connected sensor gathers the data from the doctor, nurse or patient.
  • An Artificial intelligence programmed IoT device then analyzed the acquired data.
  • The device then sends the data to the cloud server and performs the action.
  • Lastly, with the help of the data provided by the IoT device doctors and health professionals can make the decisions and necessary actions.

IoT Healthcare Challenges

  • Data Security and Privacy
    IoT devices listed in healthcare lack data protocols and standards and ambiguity regarding data ownership regulation. Together, all these factors make the data open to cybercrimes, frauds, and theft and risk Personal Health Information (PHI) of both medics and patients.
  • Devices and Protocols
    Because of no communication protocols and standards, multiple devices certainly act as a barrier to the implementation of IoT in the healthcare domain. Thus, no matter if the devices are connected, there will always be a difference in the communication protocol that complicates and hinders the whole process of data interactions.
  • Data Overload
    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 generate huge amounts of data. The data generated from IoT in healthcare will likely make storage requirements grow much higher, from Terabytes to Petabytes.
  • Cost
    In many ways, IoT is leading the race but till now it is not as affordable to the common man as that for big healthcare organizations.
  • Connectivity
    For IoT devices to work, Wi-Fi connectivity is necessary. Poor networks can hamper the idea of IoT devices. In hospitals, network connections are strong, but there’s no guarantee on the patients’ end.

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Future of The Internet of Things in Healthcare

IoT-enabled healthcare devices can easily interact and take vital actions that would offer one-time assistance to save lives.

Future IoT Applications in Healthcare
  1. Insulin Pens & Active CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring)
    Insulin pens and active CGM devices help monitor blood glucose levels and then transfer the data to a smartphone app. Diabetic patients can make use of such devices to monitor their glucose levels.
  2. Brain Swelling Sensors
    They are small sensors that help measure the pressure on your brain and melt on their own in the body without the need for medical assistance.
  3. Ingestible Sensors
    It is one of the friendly sensors that help doctors ensure that their patients take their medicines on time.
  4. Smart video pills
    It is an amazing pill that can travel through the intestinal tract of the patient and click pictures as it travels. It can also send the information gathered to a smartphone app.
  5. Robotic Surgery
    IoT robotic devices more precisely and effectively perform a surgical operation successfully. These devices are easy to insert and small enough to perform surgery with minimal disruption to the patient’s body.
Conclusion

In many ways, the internet of things in healthcare is improving the service experience. Despite many hurdles, IoT is shaping the Healthcare sector into a more efficient one. At this point, IoT applications are the most strategic technology initiative for most hospitals and organizations. Sooner than later, IoT and the Healthcare Industry will become inseparable, and one cannot imagine a health sector without the internet of things. Once fully adopted, IoT devices can significantly help in healthcare services.

 

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