Healthcare industry is disrupting IoT technologies for improving operations in various domains, but there’s still a long way to go. The article explains the IoT benefits for doctors, hospitals, pharma, and patients and what are the challenges involved in faster implementation of IoT in health sectors.
Healthcare cost continues to increase consistently due to a rise in chronic diseases and the ageing population. With a projected growth of healthcare IoT at $158 billion by 2022, IoT is estimated to play a critical role in addressing future healthcare problems. Connected devices enable healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, life sciences companies, and clinical staff to deliver excellent services and lead healthcare innovation.
IoT Benefits for Health Providers
Azure IoT sensors and devices unlock endless possibilities for healthcare experts by reducing human errors and coordinating productivity across clinical equipment. It helps health providers to ensure regulatory compliance while they exchange patient health information across networks.
IoT endpoints allow extending patient care beyond the hospital buildings by reducing admissions, and managing diseases remotely.
IoT Benefits for Pharmaceutical Industry
Pharma companies across the continents are adopting IoT technologies and integrating smart sensors in their manufacturing plants for improving process efficiency and optimizing production. IoTimplementationalso results in providing extensive inventory traceability along the supply chain in pharmaceutical businesses.
IoT integration in pharma manufacturing plants allows gaining insights to real-time data and improves operations visibility throughout various processes.
IoT Benefits for Patients
Use of IoT to facilitate precision patient care through Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) devices for collecting patient’s medical data such as statistics, sleep breath patterns, etc. It allows connecting RPM with other devices like HER and eliminates the need for healthcare staff to enter information manually.
Use of Real-Time Location devices facilitates smooth clinical workflow, improved doctor-patient communication, and better utilization of resources.
Challenges of IoT in the Healthcare Sector
Data Security & Privacy
Unquestionably IoT in healthcare offers a plethora of benefits; it also brings along a lot of challenges. If you are looking forward to implementing IoT into your clinic, healthcare centre, health studios, etc., there are few challenges you need to acknowledge.
Data Security & Privacy
IoT devices integrated into healthcare poise risk to data security and privacy of information. IoT devices and sensors capture data in real-time but lack adherence to security protocols, compliance mandatory to avoid access threats.
Massive Inputs of Data
When you make your healthcare centre IoT enabled, you need to implement thousands of IoT endpoints and sensors across multiple locations. Not just that, there will be thousand o other connected devices that will generate astronomical volumes of data, in real-time.
Significant Time & Efforts
IoT generates a huge amount of big data analytics solutions services which will likely to grow rapidly due to which the storage requirements will only grow from gigabytes to terabytes to petabytes, maybe more. AI algorithms and Cloud can help in managing this data, which could be time and cost consuming.
A Surge in Hacking Attempt
Using IoT devices and sensors, the healthcare industry can optimize operations across all departments, but it can also lead to vulnerable security spots. It can give rise to increased hacking practices where hackers can easily access critical information and steal it from medical devices.
Enormous Infrastructure Costs
With legacy applications in place, hospitals are still not modernized and ready to leverage the benefits of innovative technologies like Azure IoT. The existing infrastructure does not allow integrating IoT application to gain full advantages of the immersive technology. So, healthcare providers need to revamp their technology ecosystem with modern software apps.
Is Healthcare IoT Worth Implementing or Not?
Despite numerous challenges, the IoT healthcare industry is rising rapidly, though not as faster as expected. Concerns about data security, obsolete infrastructure, lack of regulations, cost-driven IoT implementation is impacting the healthcare sector to a large extent.
However, the excellent benefits that IoT technology brings to the healthcare sector cannot be ignored at any cost. So, healthcare sectors can implement Azure IoT by consulting IoT specialists. Moreover, health providers can leverage connected infrastructure to make the most from IoT technologies by hiring skilled .NET development India experts.
Let’s have a look at some of the best IoT apps in the healthcare sector.
Top IoT Healthcare Application You Should Implement Today
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) System
Remote Patient Monitoring, also known as Remote Patient Monitoring system is an innovative IoT healthcare application that allows examining patient’s vitals remotely. The IoT enabled system aims at serving patients, especially physically disabled individuals, with easy access to doctors by providing mobile support. It facilitates better and quick medical interventions in the event of emergencies.
QardioCore
It’s an ECG monitor developed to gather medical-grade data of patients for quick processing. Users can wear the IoT enabled device at home, at work, at the office or at the gym for consistently monitoring their blood pressure rates. It allows users to monitor their cholesterol levels and take appropriate medication to avoid severe medical conditions. It gives you a clinically validated electrocardiograph records for deeper insights into heart health. The patient can share its medical information with their health providers without the need to visit them physically.
Zanthion
Zanthion is a medical alert system that notifies the person when its body temperature raises that the normal range. It integrates advanced fall detection and prevention algorithms that notifies your loved ones in case of medical emergencies. It is an ideal equipment for senior citizens as it integrates geospatial technology that will raise an alert if the person crosses the defined perimeter. Real-time GPS system keeps notifying the loved ones right from the moment the senior person opens the door of the house.
ScreenCloud
ScreenCloud is an immersive application used by healthcare providers and hospitals for digital signage. It allows the healthcare centres to use digital noticeboards for sharing crucial information with all the patients. ScreenCloud is a robust application that helps hospital staff in saving time by sharing important information via digital channels. It allows improving patient anxiety levels as health-related information is available in real-time to the patients. Moreover, the app helps to build transparent, better relationships with the patients.
Wrapping Up
The IoT devices, whether they are designed for Health Review Board monitoring, home tracking, or clinical efficiency simplifies the way the healthcare professionals use to monitor and manage medical conditions. If you too want to build a multi-spectral, performance-oriented application, our big data analytics solutions experts can help you in building one.
