July 20188 Technology can, on occasion, be hyped. Gartner even has a methodology for it: The Hype Cycle. But when it comes to the hot topic of now, the Internet of Things (IoT), all talks justified: we believe that IoT will transform the way we work across many sectors.In the healthcare field, IoT describes an environment where smart labels (e.g. barcodes and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags) and sensors fixed to objects, and linked to the internet; give those objects a digital voice. Sensors and barcodes can be attached to pretty much any item--clinicians, patients, vehicles, equipment, medicines--and with these items transmitting streams of data, for example with their location, insight is provided about every corner of the hospital, in real time.By enabling the sensing and analysing the data collected in real-time, it leads to actions that are more in tune with what is going on at that point in time. This allows us to rethink the way we work in healthcare.Better Ways of WorkingMany healthcare processes are based around manual workflows: workflows that involve paper records and manually entering data using keyboards. In high-pressure environments, this creates the scope for error and, with 98,000 deaths in the US alone attributed to medication errors; IoT offers safer and better ways of working. Here are three examples:· Medication management: Take a nurse giving medication to a patient. At the patient's bedside they can use a mobile computer to scan the patient's ID bracelet. This will confirm the patient's name (which the nurse can verify verbally) and bring up their medical record. The computer will provide a guided workflow with any instructions for administering the drug. The nurse can also scan the barcode on the drug packet to cross-check that the patient has no THE PRESCRIPTIONFOR A REVOLUTION IN HEALTHCAREBY GEORGE PEPES, APAC HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS LEAD, ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIESIN MY V EW
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