Medical IoT – The medical industry not only stands to benefit from integration of IoT technologies and solutions, but the social good that will come from this integration will be very significant. Improvements in medical care devices, in-patient, out-patient, elder, and preventive care will all see great benefits. Here are just a few of the opportunities where IoT can bring significant economic value to this industry:
- End to end data delivery solutions for device OEMs and connectivity to back end medical record systems. Back end analytics can provide patient to patient correlation information.
- IoT real time data acquisition and Data transformation tools to map data to back end systems. Real time data can be monitored against defined profiles for diagnosis and alarms.
- Insurance company benefits from patients using IoT-wellness systems will benefit from greater client health. Insurance companies can offer proactive client programs, client savings and improved profitability. They will be motivated to fund development and subsidize device cost from insurance companies.
- IoT-wellness devices and post acute care IoT systems will significantly reduce the overall cost of medical services as an industry. These markets remain underserved and are a growth opportunity.
- IoT real time data collection, aggregation, and communication to back end medial diagnostics and analytic tools. This is a gap today but the potential advantages of the “connected patient” provides the economic motivation close this med-tech gap.
We should expect to see significant advances as IoT advances in the medical industry:
In Prevention and Wellness – Challenge: monitoring patients in cost effective and non-invasive ways. IoT wearable solutions with integration of health related sensors can be of tremendous benefit here. With wearables, it may also be possible to “game-ify” preventative health by achieving personal goals aligned to insurance premiums, etc. A challenge in this area will be data aggregation if field IoT information into existing/back-end medical data formats.
In Chronic Care – Challenge: fuller lines of effective bio-sensors, reliable transport to back end systems and data transformation for compatibility. Ready to deploy end to end solution options and standards for security for device OEMs will accelerate the development of this market segment.
In Acute Care – Challenge: Wirelessly and reliably link all of the various sensors measuring vitals in the emergency or intensive-care unit. Challenge: Integrate real time data with back end patient data for comprehensive real time analytics and correlation
Post Acute Care – Challenge: Effective monitoring of patient vitals in lower cost / more comfortable home settings. Connecting data to doctors. Again, effective data sensing solutions are critical to success.