A New Era in Healthcare Begins with the Internet of Things!

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and stroke account for more than 50 percent of deaths each year, and unfortunately these diseases cause people to experience their most painful period of life. The importance of protective / preventive healthcare is often not understood until illness strikes. Today, there are technological innovations for preventive healthcare. One of these is the Internet of Things [Internet of Things (IoT)] technology, which we know is supported especially by large companies seeking to accelerate this process with substantial investments. In 2015 there were 95 million devices compatible with the Internet of Things; in 2020 this number is expected to reach 646 million.

The Internet of Things is a communication network in which physical objects / items are connected to one another or to larger systems.

A revolution in healthcare is planned with the Internet of Things. Hospitals will be much better equipped with this technology. This technology, which greatly excites the medical world, will make early diagnosis and easy, controlled care much easier.

In the chart below, you can see Google Trends data showing how the striking interest in the Internet of Things has increased over the years.

The Internet of Things can help prevent the onset of any disease and assist early diagnosis, thereby enabling the disease to be overcome more quickly and easily.

For example, data can help inform clinicians and patients about treatment options and improve their responses.

Understanding IoT-Based Technologies

With increasing patient numbers today, we cannot find enough time to analyze every aspect of a patient’s condition, and reviewing all of a patient’s health data on one’s own has become almost impossible. In theory, this technology, through which we can collect data from every object, can help ease this burden and focus on critical issues by providing information about patients in large numbers and many forms. In addition, in analyzing large amounts and many types of data, artificial intelligence emerges as our most important assistant.

Three Healthcare Service Areas Areas Where the Internet of Things Can Be Effective;

• Presenting a summarized, holistic report about a patient’s condition,
• A better perspective on patient adherence and rehabilitation through long-term data collection,
• Facilitating the presentation and interpretation of data, and the transfer of information between care providers (healthcare service providers).

Healthcare providers also plan to collect real-time data through devices and objects with continuous internet connections, and use these data to make accurate predictions to stop the spread of epidemics. Hospitals will naturally be the first settings where the Internet of Things is used in healthcare. For example;

• tracking the delivery of the right medication to the right patient,
• instant measurement of ambient air quality,
• the ability to monitor all patients’ vital signs, such as pulse, heart rhythm and oxygen level, in real time, even from the physician’s home

Today, traditional medical technology focuses on the physician or technician using the technology rather than the patient, but technologies such as the Internet of Things appear likely to make it easier to put the patient at the very heart of healthcare. For example, in the near future, blood glucose meters will store glucose level measurements and transfer this information to smartphones. Through smartphones, both the patient and the healthcare professional following them will have real-time and long-term information about blood glucose trends, and will be able to educate the patient or make recommendations through the same system. Another example could be smart pillboxes. With these boxes, information about whether patients take their medications, and whether they take them on time, can be monitored by patients themselves, their relatives and healthcare workers.

Internet of Things-Enabled Devices Have Three Distinct Features

• Recording: Records patient data instantly, allowing individuals to monitor their progress and shortening the feedback loop.
• Sharing: Can automatically transmit patient data, analyze it with software and chart trends or perform disease analysis.
• Feedback and education: Can provide positive feedback and support that encourage patients to make healthy choices and manage their chronic diseases

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The Future of IoT-Compatible Devices

The Internet of Things has now begun to take its place in healthcare to help change and accelerate traditional procedures. Developed at Baylor College of Medicine, IBM Watson application KnIT is an example of Internet of Things-enabled technology transforming how data are received, developed, shared and used in healthcare settings. KnIT uses Watson’s innovative artificial intelligence (AI) platform to read and analyze millions of scientific papers; this gives us an effective, economical system for sharing data and knowledge. In 2014, a Baylor team identified six new proteins for cancer research.

IBM and a team of specialists are teaching Watson to collect and interpret patient data, aiming as a result to provide both doctors and users of healthcare devices with real-time recommendations for chronic diseases.

Medical device companies such as Biotricity are pioneering work on remote patient monitoring. These companies are developing medical devices that collect patient data instantly in a secure cloud environment for analysis. This technology is designed to establish a two-way communication network . In this way, clinicians will provide patients with feedback based on incoming data and will be able to deliver better healthcare.

However, experts have identified shortcomings in Internet of Things technology, particularly in data security and device management, and work has increasingly focused on closing the gaps in these areas. Data transmitted from Internet of Things devices have been added to the patient information for which clinicians traditionally bear responsibility; this has brought cloud technology into the picture. Various technologies need to be integrated into the hardware of Internet of Things devices to take this security precaution. It is important for clinicians to be knowledgeable about such issues and develop solutions to these problems. Ultimately, physicians who protect patient data and use Internet of Things technologies will be more successful and provide better healthcare / care.

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