THE IMPACT OF IOT IN HEALTHCARE J AMES H E I D R I C H
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Internet of Things (IoT) has proven to bring convenience, efficiency, and automation to multiple of industries, including healthcare. From improving patient’s health to increasing drug management, IoT has impacted the healthcare industry in a positive way. Utilizing this technology-based healthcare method, has improved the quality and efficiency of healthcare in the following ways.
Monitoring Patient Health
Pharma companies like WuXi PharmaTech, Proteus Digital Health, and TruTag are developing edible IoT, “smart” pills. These pills will help to help to monitor health issues, adherence, and medication controls. Once a pill dissolves in the stomach, a signal will be transmitted to a sensor worn on the body. From there, the signal will be transferred to a patient’s mobile device. Not only will these smart pills allow patients to monitor their medications, but it will help drug companies to reduce associated risks. Similar to the technology associated with “smart pills”, wearable devices can provide information on medical emergencies such as heart failure or asthma attacks. With IoT, personal health data of patients can be updated almost instantly to the cloud. Regardless of where you are, what time it is, or what device you are on, a patient can share their health data with authorized personnel.
Safety of Staff, Patients, and Inventory Safety is often a top concern for any hospital or medical facility. It can be challenging to track all staff members, patients, and inventory throughout an entire facility, especially when the facility encompasses multiple buildings or campuses. IoT can facilitate asset tracking that is both inexpensive and unobtrusive.
Reduce Costs With IoT, medical staff won’t have to make as frequent visits to patients. The automated system can record a patient’s information without the need for manual adjustments. This means that doctors and nurses will have more time to devote to more pressing matters. Other ways that IoT can reduce cost is sending push notifications to patients to remind them to follow their post-treatment plan. Additionally, alerts can be distributed to remind patients of deadlines and appointments. Doing all of this prevents the readmission of patients.
Drug Management One of the biggest issues in healthcare is introducing new drugs. Over 2 billion dollars is spent on the regulation and marketing of new drugs. With the help of automated systems, pharmaceutical companies can reduce production costs. To decrease cost and lessen the influence of the fraudulent drug industry, more companies are utilizing IoT. RFID is one of the newest implementations of drug management technology. By using electromagnetic fields, RFID technology is able to precisely identify key drug and patient data.
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