I. Introduction
1. What is IoT?
IoT in Healthcare – The term “Internet of Things (IoT)” has recently become popular in the field of communication technology. IoT has been designed to transform many aspects of our lives, reshaping our world. In the coming years, the number of IoT devices is expected to significantly increase. The IoT’s reach is beyond the current 12 billion internet-connected devices and is estimated to grow 26 times the human population by 2020.
Today, everything around us, from home appliances and various gadgets to vending machines and cars, has the ability to connect online and interact with other devices. IoT refers to devices or objects that can interact with the internet using physical devices, sensors, controllers, and network connections that allow these objects to collect and exchange data.
Every device has a unique identifier (UID), facilitating communication as easily as machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. A large amount of data collected from devices worldwide is stored in the cloud. As a result, systems become more efficient and intelligent.
2. IoT in Healthcare
The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming a life-changing and promising technology in today’s world.
It is a computational process where communication is conducted or supported by sensors. In recent years, IoT has become most effective in the healthcare sector to improve patient care quality.
As health issues continue to rise, providing health support for each member is crucial.
People today are busy with their lives, and sometimes, they forget about their health issues. Some even neglect their health.
When healthcare systems start communicating with IoT devices, it begins to maintain the digital identity of the patient. Nowadays, IoT in healthcare has become more efficient as communication between doctors and patients has improved with mobile applications.
These applications are developed by companies to allow doctors to monitor patients’ health.
If issues arise with patients, doctors can access them and provide timely treatment.
II. Top 4 Healthcare Challenges
IoT healthcare transforms health data into detailed information for smarter patient care. Healthcare today has advanced technology, all aimed at connecting everything together. Therefore, IoT is crucial in healthcare.
By utilizing devices such as sensors connected to various wearable types, all that information can be input into the cloud, and doctors or caregivers can easily monitor real-time patient information.
IoT healthcare can support life-saving applications in the healthcare industry by collecting data from bedside devices, viewing patient information, and diagnosing in real-time across the entire patient care system.
Today, many healthcare devices worldwide have become an issue because it can cause data loss and errors in diagnosis. To overcome this, the collected data will be stored in the cloud.
1. Clinical Care
Using IoT-controlled sensors, patients are continuously monitored. Patients need to be monitored for their physiological condition, which is non-intrusive monitoring.
The patient’s condition is monitored by sensors that collect physiological information for analysis, using gateways. The information obtained will be stored in the cloud.
This information is then sent to caregivers, doctors via wireless networks for further analysis. This helps improve the quality of care and reduce costs for patients.
2. Remote Monitoring
General IoT in the healthcare system monitors patients’ vital signs in real-time and provides feedback if there are any health issues. A device is attached to the patient (Figure 4).
The hospital has a remote monitoring system to read important signs of the patient. Similarly, when a sensor is embedded in the patient’s body, the data is transmitted electronically. The transmitted information will be safely sent to healthcare service providers, caregivers.
3. IoT Applications in Healthcare
Blood pressure monitoring
Function recovery system
Wheelchair management
4. IoT Applications in Healthcare on Smartphones
Calorie counter
Heart Rate Monitor: monitor heart rate
Blood
Body temperature
Step counter
Diabetes
…
III. Challenges with IoT in Healthcare
- Security and Privacy: Many potential impacts, as connected devices (smartphones, sensors, etc.) can be susceptible to hacker attacks. Whenever data is transmitted from one device to another, it must be encrypted.
- Integration: Integrating many devices and protocols in the network is another challenge to make IoT healthcare successful.
There are many connected smartphones positively contributing to data collection.
Additionally, there are various communication protocols complicating the information synthesis process.
- Technology Implementation: Creating a new application with innovative ideas benefits doctors and patients.
IV. Pros and Cons of IoT in Healthcare
1. Advantages
Treatment is carried out before or timely, as patients are continuously monitored, and caregivers or providers can access data and make real-time decisions, improving patient management.
Automatic data and intelligent monitoring controlled by IoT-connected devices make decisions easily based on analysis, minimizing errors.
Patient monitoring is done in real-time, significantly reducing unnecessary doctor visits and hospitalization time. This can reduce costs for patients.
Connected healthcare allows caregivers to access real-time information as patients are continuously monitored, making the right decisions. This can help provide timely care services to improve treatment outcomes.
2. Disadvantages
There is an issue with the compatibility of IoT in healthcare because currently, there are few tagging and monitoring standards with sensors.
Privacy and security are major concerns with IoT in healthcare; all patient data must be encrypted.
Software can be attacked by other users, and personal information can be misused.
V. Conclusion
The conveniences and efficiencies from applying IoT technology in healthcare continue to drive the healthcare industry to invest more, bringing smart care services to everyone.
IoT initiatives have begun to be implemented in some places and are rapidly increasing even with many barriers still in existence. To date, IoT initiatives in healthcare mostly revolve around improving remote health monitoring systems, controlling and maintaining assets with medical devices, healthcare assets, and non-medical assets such as hospital building assets.
Cre: pavietnam
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