The global pandemic caused due to COVID-19 has given scope to new inventions in the internet of things healthcare market. A news report stated that the future of IoT in healthcare will be prioritized and facilitated by IoT service providers once the chaos caused by the COVID-19 ends. The report also said that IoT will further modernize healthcare, create new preventive channels, and manage health-related disasters more efficiently.

The healthcare industry is rapidly developing and it is always difficult to predict which innovation will be the next game-changer. However, IoT technologies are sure to shape the future of the healthcare industry. The available IoT healthcare applications are filled with promising advances in health, testing, and medicine.

“A study by Statista suggested that more than 161 million IoT healthcare devices will be installed by the end of 2020.”

Role of IoT in Healthcare Industry

IoT in the healthcare industry has made monitoring patients organized and empowered physicians to deliver superlative care. IoT connected healthcare applications offer real-time monitoring and smart medical IoT devices synced to a smartphone app that enables doctors to collect medical data of their patients at any given place or time. The new invention in place, the future of IoT in healthcare certainly looks bright.

The role of IoT is to revolutionize the healthcare industry with inventive technologies. Change in interaction, data collection, monitoring a health condition, discovering new methods for disease prevention and self-care is what the Internet of Things has already done for the healthcare industry. Nevertheless, new challenges are further giving scope to IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analysis and continually alerting the role of IoT in the medical sector.

Benefits of IoT in Healthcare Industry

1) Decreased Operational Cost

IoT technology in healthcare can decrease operational costs. It has huge potential to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes by offering the best IoT medical devices. A report by Strategy Analytics says that Healthcare IoT may save up to a quarter of business costs. IoT healthcare applications can drive down costs and optimize cost level by providing more robust features.

2) Better Patient Experience

The healthcare industry is adopting IoT hospitals for better patient experience. IoT connected healthcare applications offer remote monitoring and make physical spaces smarter and more integrated. The overall efficiency of operations, clinical tasks, and management of essential resources improve the patient’s experience.

3) Reduced Errors

IoT healthcare applications help physicians practice, prevent, and diagnose medicine more easily. With real-time data and the possibility to analyze past treatments and diagnosis of a patient – Smart healthcare systems using iot helps to reduce errors. Moreover, constant automated monitoring and enhanced study of the patient’s condition leads to proper treatment without the possibility of error.

4) Improved Outcomes of Treatment

The data gathered by IoT healthcare devices are highly accurate and enables the doctors to make informed decisions. Patient history can be analyzed and measured swiftly. Data can also be sent to a board of doctors or healthcare professionals on a cloud platform. The AI-driven medical IoT devices support making intelligible decisions or suggestions based on existing data leading to improved outcomes for the treatment.

5) Improved Disease Management

IoT healthcare application benefits in eliminating the need for a health care professional by providing ubiquitous monitoring systems that can be used for disease management. Furthermore, readily accessible sensors and gateways analyze data and communicate it wirelessly to medical professionals giving added scope to improved disease management systems.

IoT applications in the Healthcare Industry

1) Tracking Staff, Patients, and Inventory

What is IoT Tracking in Healthcare?

IoT tracking in a healthcare facility is a process of keeping track of the hospital’s physical assets including staff and patients. The usage of IoT tracking in medical surroundings is also referred to as “indoor GPS”. IoT majorly uses the technology of RFID tags (Radio-Frequency Identification) to track and monitor healthcare assets.

IoT in the medical field is largely used for tracking purposes. Some of the IoT solutions are used to provide immediate or real-time tracking. Leading IoT companies offer devices and applications to track and manage medical equipment, staff, and patients within all types of medical environments. IoT apps typically have location sensors that are attached to various assets of the medical facility from the patient, to a staff member or a piece of medical equipment. Each asset is given a unique ID and the system tracks these tags. IoT healthcare applications enable tracking in hospital units, rooms, beds, and even shelf-level tracking for true workflow automation.

Purpose of IoT Tracking in the Healthcare Industry

The IoT healthcare devices are responsible for storing, processing, and analyzing the data gathered by RFID readers. In simple words, the tracker provides data about hospital assets – stock limits, level of usage, frequency, and medical conditions.

The purpose of IoT tracking in the healthcare industry is to make well-versed decisions and provide on-time treatment. Tracking through IoT healthcare applications enables real-time alerting, and monitoring. All of this enables them to offer accurate treatments and improved patient care.

2) Remote Patient Monitoring System

What is the IoT based Remote Patient Monitoring System?

A remote patient monitoring system is one of the best IoT healthcare applications used widely across the globe. IoT based remote patient monitoring system is an extension of medical systems, where a patient’s vitals can be monitored remotely.

Taking the capability of IoT technology into account, an IoT healthcare service invented a remote patient monitoring system. The system consisted of three health sensors – the heart pulse sensor, body temperature sensor, and galvanic skin response sensor. By detecting these three parameters, medical professionals calculate several other readings. The remote patient monitoring system also allowed health care experts to screen, analyze, and counsel their patients constantly.

Purpose of Remote Patient Monitoring System

The remote patient monitoring system is an IoT enabled healthcare system that aims at providing physically unstable patients easy access to doctors regularly. On the other side, doctors can monitor patients and offer accurate and timely assistance. The system intends to offer mobile support to facilitate faster and better medical interventions in case of emergency.

Currently, remote patient monitoring systems have been developed using low-power dedicated miniaturization sensors with the sole purpose to monitor EKG, SpO2, temperature, and movement.

3) Robotics and Healthcare Automation

What is Robotics & Healthcare Automation in the IoT based Healthcare Industry?

Did you know that to scale critical ICU nursing resources during the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, a field hospital was staffed primarily with IoT robots. The IoT robots were to wash, disinfect, deliver medicines, and take patients’ temperatures within the hospital. Hospital administrators claimed that the robots aided the nursing resources for critical care as well as lessened the transmission of the virus to hospital staff. Robotics and healthcare automation made this possible.

Robotics and healthcare automation are powerful IoT applications in the healthcare industry. With the help of the machine, learning robots can do the jobs on their own. Robotics and healthcare automation systems are built with statistical pattern recognition, parametric and non-parametric algorithms, neural networks, recommender systems, etc. Robotics and healthcare automation in the IoT based healthcare industry allows multiple robots to be interconnected. The IoT platform offers distinctive facilities by interconnecting objects or people and transferring those data between the two robots – without a human to a computer or human interaction.

Purpose of Robotics and Healthcare Automation

Robotics and healthcare automation as IoT applications aims at observing and capturing data from anything and everything connected to a network and transferring it to automated tools. Also, the increasing scope of robotics and healthcare automation allows doctors to perform various types of complex robotic surgeries aiming at more precision, flexibility, and control.

Robotics and healthcare automation are also facilitated by performing integrated duties using the field of mechanical and electronics. The ultimate purpose of automation in healthcare and the use of robots is medically intervening, rehabilitating, and care for patients.

4) Smart Hospitals

What is a Smart Hospital based on IoT?

Smart hospitals are medical facilities that use IoT applications to monitor the health of patients, saline levels, blood pressure, and control vitals from a distant position. Smart hospitals operate mainly on IoT applications that can monitor the patient and generate an alarm if the condition of the patient is deteriorating. An IoT healthcare app development company can especially build IoT applications for Smart Hospitals based on their requirements.

Smart hospitals use IoT applications, cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. A smart hospital is where a composed IT environment is created to serve healthcare using automation and specialized auxiliary processes.

Purpose of Smart Hospitals

IoT applications play a major role in healthcare by not only offering sensory devices but also by communicating, recording, and displaying data. However, this crucial data of various medical parameters and post-operational conditions can be put to use through smart hospitals using IoT applications. Hence, a smart hospital using IoT applications catalyzes healthcare and plays a prominent role in a wide range of healthcare applications.
The goal of smart hospitals is to develop, design, and construct new clinical processes using IoT applications. Smart hospitals optimize management systems as well as digitize networking infrastructure with advanced IoT healthcare technologies to provide a valuable service.

5) Hospital Information Management System

What is the IoT based Hospital Information and Management System?

IoT based hospital information and management systems provide a common source of information about a patient’s health history. IoT applications connect physical and analog devices through the internet, with the use of actuators and sensors to gather data. This data is stored in hospital information and management systems and analyzed by medical staff.

The elements of IoT based hospital information and management systems do not only limit the patient’s health history. But, also support supplementary systems such as financial & commercial systems, communication & networking systems, department management systems, medical documentation, and medical support systems.

Purpose of the Hospital Information Management System

IoT based hospital information and management systems aim at managing the clinical staff, medical equipment, and patient activities remotely. With the use of IoT based hospital information and management systems, immediate access is available to authorized users. Patient-centric and technologically hospitals ensure an efficient medical environment.

IoT based hospital information and management systems handle different directions of medical workflows. Hospital information and management systems improve healthcare performance along with administrative, medical, legal, and financial control.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the future of IoT in healthcare is bright and it has a lot of calibers to revolutionize healthcare services. Almost all healthcare facilities across the world have adopted IoT systems. From leading hospitals to small clinics – all are availing the benefits of IoT in healthcare. The future of IoT in healthcare with being a game-changer and the new IoT innovations will mobilize business patterns and automate the data monitoring process. IoT can also make healthcare cost-effective and medically efficient in the future.

Several reports claim that in the next few years IoT healthcare will have more customized and patient-oriented equipment. With the use of IoT technology, supervision and monitoring will be more systematic. Moreover, IoT will also enable patients to get better access to data and personalized care and reduce visits to the hospital.