In recent years, IoT has been restructuring the technological landscape, especially since its entry into the medical field.
The Healthcare industry has seen a massive transformation, with IoT offering solutions across various dimensions such as wearable devices, smart pills, remote healthcare, and other things.
Let us take a look at some of the benefits of IoT in healthcare:
- Glucose Monitoring Systems
Implantable IoT devices with sensors can be used for monitoring glucose in patients with Diabetes and recording their historical data.
These devices will provide automatic, continuous monitoring of glucose levels and send reports to the patient’s mobile phone whenever there is something alarming.
IoT devices eliminate the need for maintaining manual records.
- Remote Health Monitoring
One of the most common applications of IoT in healthcare, patients can wear devices that will monitor and collect data on their blood pressure levels, heart rate, temperature, etc.
The collected data is then forwarded to a software application that can be accessed by the patient’s healthcare service provider. It is also analyzed to generate alerts or recommend treatment to the patient.
These wearable devices are also able to create alerts for healthcare professionals when a patient experiences a medical emergency like a heart attack or stroke.
- Mood Monitoring
Data related to a patient’s mood or depression is hard to collect.
IoT devices can help to cognitively monitor mood by collecting and analyzing data on heart rate and blood pressure to make an inference on the patient’s mental state.
- Parkinson’s Disease Trackers
One of the challenges faced by healthcare systems is monitoring the exact severity of Parkinson’s symptoms. IoT sensors with ECG monitoring can be used to continuously collect data on symptoms from Parkinson’s patients.
An advanced device may also be able to carry out an early diagnosis of the disease, thus changing the future of IoT in healthcare.
- Ingestible Diagnostic Sensors
One interesting application of IoT in healthcare is Ingestible sensors in the form of pills. These pills can be swallowed by patients to collect information from their digestive systems and other systems.
This is a less invasive way of collecting data like pH levels, symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome or colon cancer, etc upon ingestion, which can then be relayed to the patient’s mobile device.
- IoT-connected Inhalers
IoT-connected inhalers are useful for patients suffering from Asthma or COPD.
These trackable inhalers help the patient monitor frequency of their attack and collect additional information from a patient’s surrounding to help the healthcare providers determine what triggered these attacks.
Additionally, these devices also remind the patients to take their medications and send periodic alerts to them when they leave their inhalers at home.
- Heart-Rate Monitors
The traditional method of heart-rate monitoring requires patients to be attached to their wired machine – not anymore.
Small IoT devices for heart-rate monitoring can be worn by the patients to collect data relating to blood pressure and heart rate. This data can be accessed by healthcare professionals at the time of patient examination.
Additionally, this data can also alert healthcare professionals when a patient is experiencing palpitations, stroke, or even heat attacks so that they can dispatch the ambulance on time.
- IoT Contact Lenses
A combination of smart lenses and off-the-shelf contact lenses, IoT Contact Lenses devices allow healthcare professionals to digitally interact with patients.
These lenses are currently being used to read the glucose levels of patients. Additionally, their application may extend to patients taking pictures with their eyes through a micro camera.
- IoT-Aided Robotic Surgery
IoT in healthcare industry can be used to perform assisted surgery to reduce the complexities and invasiveness associated with the conventional surgical process.
Small robots, connected to the internet, that can interpret complex body conditions can be deployed in the human body, to perform complex surgical procedures.
Haptic technology can be employed in IoT-aided surgeries that can enable the surgeon to use a robotic interface for remote patient operation.
IoT-aided Robotic surgery has been used to carry out micro-surgery, remote surgeries, and robot-assisted minimally invasive surgeries.
- Medicine Dispensers
An invention set to change the future of IoT in healthcare, Medicine Dispensers are small devices that can be implanted in patients.
These devices dispense defined doses of medication throughout the day and also notify patients when their medication needs to be refilled.
Healthcare professionals can access this data to be informed about missed doses and whether there is a need for change in the patient’s medication.
Security And The Future of IoT in Healthcare
In order to reap the maximum benefits of IoT in healthcare, combating security challenges is important.
IoT Developers, manufacturers, and managers must ensure that the data collected by these devices is securely stored and transmitted. Organizations need to invest in a secure IoT infrastructure and IoT software developers that enhance visibility and security while catering to organization-specific needs. Start your process for software development solutions with us today!