Use Case: IoT for Smart Healthcare
Habiba Marei • 21 April 2022
The rapid growth of technology and ever-growing consumerism in today’s world has shifted the focus on healthcare from a ‘service’ model to an ‘experience’ model. The need for smart healthcare has never been greater as the quality of service provided by traditional medical institutions has deteriorated over the past few years. According to IBM Watson Health, this decline was due to a lack of trust in the medical community, limited access to information about one’s health, high costs and time for treatment, and a lack of effective communication between patients and doctors.
With Covid-19 and the increasing popularity of traditional healthcare service providers such as hospitals and clinics, a new breed of start-ups has emerged offering improved services and support to bring about a better healthcare experience. The introduction of smart products in the healthcare sector will definitely increase efficiency and help patients receive better services from their doctors and nurses. IoT in smart healthcare is not limited to human beings but can also be used for animals such as dogs, cats, or any other pets.
What is smart healthcare?
Smart healthcare is defined as a healthcare environment in which technology is used to make healthcare services and resources more accessible, efficient, cost-effective, and patient-centered. Any technology that’s used to collect health data and help people with their own health can be called smart healthcare. Many smart healthcare devices have already been developed to help people keep track of their health, provide them with access to their medical records, and allow healthcare professionals to monitor patients without having to visit them regularly.
Smart healthcare comes in many forms. One of them is wearable technology, which is already taking over big time. It's estimated that around 65% of people wear some sort of wearable device that helps them monitor their health or various aspects of their lifestyle. These smart devices are becoming increasingly popular for their convenience and accuracy when it comes to tracking vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar levels, and more.
5 benefits of smart healthcare
1. Better Safety and Security
Smart healthcare helps to ensure that patients and staff members are safe and secure by using facial recognition in order to verify who can access rooms, elevators, and other sensitive spaces within the hospital. It also helps increase safety through the use of emergency response systems built into the infrastructure of the hospital itself, identifying areas that need immediate attention or evacuation.
2. Reduced Human Error Rates
When healthcare comes into play, the challenge only doubles as healthcare professionals are tasked with solving problems that are often critical to human life and wellbeing. More than 3,000 Americans die each year from hospital-acquired infections alone. Patient satisfaction levels are at an all-time low, and missed diagnoses are still far too common. Smart healthcare reduces these errors by helping healthcare professionals do their jobs more effectively while following best practices.
3. Better Communication
IoT in the healthcare industry means increased and enhanced communication, resulting in reduced medication errors, dangerous procedures, time consumption, and more. The sheer volume of paperwork that inundates the healthcare industry is staggering, and because of it, mistakes are all too often made. Smart healthcare plays a huge role in improving communication among patients, caregivers, equipment, and insurance companies.
4. Data Transparency and Accuracy
Smart healthcare is more than just lifestyle tracking and connected medical devices—it's about making sure that the data provided by those devices is specific, accurate, and meaningful. Smart healthcare ensures that you can trust the information you're getting from these devices. It also ensures that you can clearly see and understand the data by providing the most precise information and context possible around that data.
5. Easy Maintenance of Hospital Medical Records
According to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report, lost, inaccurate, or outdated information in hospital records is one of the leading causes of serious injuries and deaths that occur each year. Keeping all patients’ documentation encrypted on a single platform and being able to access them anytime, anywhere have many benefits for both hospital administrators and doctors.
The role IoT plays in smart healthcare
There is no question that the Internet of Things (IoT) has had a positive impact on healthcare. It is creating some interesting possibilities in the industry. The use of health sensors in IoT devices provides healthcare professionals with accurate data and information to improve patient care even when they’re not physically present. It also offers patients access to their medical records and vital signs from the comfort of their own homes, making them aware of their health and allowing them to take preventative measures. IoT is contributing in transforming traditional healthcare to become more proactive and get ahead of possible issues instead of reacting to problems after they happen.
Conclusion
IoT is a powerful tool that should be leveraged in the healthcare industry. It could help save lives by allowing healthcare professionals to provide the appropriate care at just the right time. There are major hurdles that need to be cleared, such as how to store and manage all the data being generated by IoT. But once we get past those hurdles, it should transform the entire healthcare industry. It's hard not to think about all the ways IoT can be used to improve healthcare—imagine what kind of world we'll have once it becomes more commonplace!
