The advantages of connectivity in medical devices include improved data collection, remote health monitoring, and tracking, minimized errors in data entries, and quality drug management.
“47% of Indian households are connected to the internet. This statistic grows significantly in developed countries. While general information and social media are hyper connected the healthcare system is not. Why not use the IoT (Internet of Things) network to help connect patients to clinicians and improve health outcomes?” [1]
This creates a completely authorized and safe at-home healthcare ecosystem.
IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) ensures improved self-monitoring and alerts of health parameters, seamless transfer of patient data, secured data storage, and end-to-end connectivity between patients and clinicians.
Some benefits of connected medical devices at home are:
Remote monitoring
Medical device connectivity has enabled remote monitoring of vital health parameters such as blood pressure, blood sugar, oxygen saturation, and temperature. Connected devices transfer data to the caregivers or clinicians which allows proactive care delivery. This helps bridge the gap between patients and clinicians by giving them access to data whenever and wherever they need it. This IoMT system helps in tracking patients’ symptoms over time, thereby identifying the health gap and modifying the care plan accordingly. [2]
Remote monitoring has already decreased unnecessary hospital admissions, thus avoiding long hospital stays and reducing the cost of care. [3] The patient can avoid in-person hospital visits, travel expenses, and time as they receive care via remote patient monitoring.
Remote monitoring helps clinicians and caregivers as well. Caregivers can monitor the vital parameters, well-being, and overall progress of their patients/loved ones. This can avoid over-crowding of the hospitals and focused care to critical inpatients.
Data collection and analysis
In the era of high-speed internet and smart devices use of mobile applications is increasing rapidly to track and manage user lifestyles. Connectivity in the medical industry improves the quality and efficiency of patient health treatments.[4] The Medical Internet of things (IoMT) helps transmit patient information from devices to servers and store data in cloud-based services.
These networks ensure the tracking and collection of health data, organization of patient information, and communication alerts in emergency situations.[6] Relevant analysis and data interpretations reduce the number of time clinicians and users spend on putting together the data outputs.
This data interpretation effectively enhances decision-making and health awareness.[9]
This system bridges the gap between data collection and the cloud by minimizing the tedious task of information sorting so that the user can easily pull out the data when needed.
Improved Drug management
IoMT helps build a secured database. Transmitted data from the devices is collected and analyzed and used in various ways, one of which is assisting patients in receiving at-home medications.
Non-adherence occurs when a patient forgets or neglects to take the prescribed dosage of medicine at the recommended time or discontinues the treatment without any further consultation.[7]
With the application of IoMT, traditional drug management can be enhanced and upgraded [7]. Device connectivity in drug management provides quality drug practices by ensuring the required drug explanation and medicine reconciliation without the guidance of healthcare experts. There is also widespread application in using these devices for clinical trials, to collect data autonomously and monitor outcomes over time.
Minimize errors
Medical errors impact patients' health results as it is the main source of mistakes in the healthcare industry. Miscommunication during report handoffs is a leading cause of serious medical errors. This not only risks the life of patients but also impacts the whole ecosystem. Advancement in IoMT provides an opportunity for hospitals to replace papers and files with EMR (Electronic Medical Records) which eventually eliminates manual data entry.[8]
EMR ensures accurate data collection, analysis, and storage from the data center to the cloud. With increasing health awareness, even minor mistakes in the data can create anxiety and panic in patients.
Device connectivity has helped automate the transfer of medical device data to the patient's EMR which has not only minimized errors but also reduced the hassle of manual data collection.
Conclusion
IoMT has the potential to bring a complete transformation in healthcare. It will change the way people perceive the medical industry. Connectivity between devices and mobile phones opens new ways to implement enhanced patient safety and the way data foundation is built.
Working together to build this ecosystem, we aim to create affordable, accessible, and medically tested solutions with a user-centric approach.
References
Basuroy, Tanushree. “India: Internet Penetration Rate 2021.” Statista, 9 June 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-penetration-rate/.
Catherine E. Chronaki, Panos Vardas, Remote monitoring costs, benefits, and reimbursement: a European perspective, EP Europace, Volume 15, Issue suppl_1, June 2013, Pages i59–i64, https://doi.org/10.1093/europace/eut110
Imberti, J.F., Tosetti, A., Mei, D.A. et al. Remote monitoring and telemedicine in heart failure: implementation and benefits. Curr Cardiol Rep 23, 55 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11886-021-01487-2
Dimitrov, Dimiter V. “Medical Internet of Things and Big Data in Healthcare.” Healthcare Informatics Research, Korean Society of Medical Informatics, 31 July 2016, https://synapse.koreamed.org/articles/1075790.
IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7169508.
Jagadeeswari, V., Subramaniyaswamy, V., Logesh, R. et al. A study on medical Internet of Things and Big Data in personalized healthcare system. Health Inf Sci Syst 6, 14 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13755-018-0049-x
“How IOT Enhances Medicine.” M, https://tallinn.mhealth.events/en/article/iot-v-meditsine-kak-internet-veshchey-sovershenstvuet-sferu-zdravoohraneniya-97414.
IOT Tech: Preventing Errors in Health Care, https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/technology/article/iot-tech-preventing-errors-in-health-care-419341034.
02/24/2020, Danny Jacobs on. “Practical Uses for Artificial Intelligence in Health Care.” Practical Uses for Artificial Intelligence in Health Care, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/practical-uses-for-artificial-intelligence-in-health-care.
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