IoT: unlocking facets in the healthcare industry

Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an emerging platform of solutions to improve healthcare outcomes and reduce costs. IoT is capable of collecting, recording, analyzing, and sharing uncountable data streams with faster speed and accuracy. The adoption of IoT can deduce the inefficiencies the healthcare industry is facing. IoT substitutes mundane tasks, manual treatments by sensors attached medical devices, surgical robots, and personal fitness sensors. IoT is able to improve healthcare services and patient experience as it can gain insights into patients' response to therapy or drugs. IoT-driven wearable devices make it possible to collect real-time data from millions of patients.

Key issues that IoT can address to improve healthcare systems: IoT allows physicians to collaborate with other doctors across the world and share best practices. This helps to increase the knowledge base of physicians around the world.

IoT makes it easy for getting regulatory approval, patient and caregiver adoption and motivating providers to deploy new technologies. This helps in medication of chronic diseases and post-surgery care.

Solves interoperability issues: Interoperability is a major barrier in adoption of new technology solutions in the healthcare. The industry should collectively address the issues and adopt open standards instead of proprietary protocols and interfaces. Also, new IoT technologies create more agile, flexible techniques to break the interoperability within the system and process.

Resolves information security: IoT solutions are enabled by cloud solutions. Nowadays cloud solutions are more secure than internally hosted IT solutions. IoT solutions that are enabled by peer-to-peer communication solutions reduce security-related risks.

Improves healthcare data collection and exchange: Sensors collect and stream data from patients, hospitals, doctors, and ambulances are infused in operational processes for more effective healthcare services. The collection of patient data enables preventive care, prompts diagnosis of acute complications and promotes understanding about therapies.

Provides analytics and intelligence: Implementation of IoT solutions generate data, which is used for a user's consumption for efficient and effective decision making. Predictive analytics is also a part of traditional decision-making processes.

Improve medical image processing: The amounts of captured medical images are increasing, which becomes hectic for the physicians to check the images up. IoT solutions wipe out the imperfections by analyzing the images faster and detecting anomalies in a better way.

IoT solutions seem to be promising that pave the way where doctors, physicians, and patients can try to deliver a better healthcare platform.