The covid pandemic has affected the lives and lifestyles of many. Be it business, climate, health, or any important factor, it has affected all and mostly the healthcare industry.
This has highly affected the frontline workers which has burdened them with too much work, and all credits to technology and innovation that have lightened their workload.
Additionally, the grind was eased with the integration of IoT in the healthcare industry. As per the numbers from Statista, the number of IoT-connected devices worldwide is predicted to increase three times i.e. from $8.74 billion in 2020 to above $25.4 billion by 2030.
Now moving ahead with this article, we will be discussing the IoT, its implementation in healthcare along with the revolution that it has brought to this specific industry.
What is IoT?
When you have things that make lives easier just by talking to them, why burden yourself with extra work? Everyone who is familiar with the internet might have heard people speaking to devices like, “Hey Siri! Change the lighting and set the mood to Sunset” or maybe “Hey Alexa! Play my favorite song”… All these have been possible with IoT.
Internet of Things, also apprehended as IoT is the trend that has eased the lives of this digital and tech centralized era. When defined, IoT is termed as all the physical objects and devices which has integrated sensors that allow them to connect with other similar IoT integrated devices to exchange information via the internet.
The integration of IoT has made everything smart, which includes devices like home lighting gadgets, security installations, smart speakers like Alexa, Google Home, and many more.
Investing in IoT has proved to be beneficial time and again and has facilitated its users with completing the tasks more efficiently and effectively.
Implementation of IoT in the Healthcare Industry
There is no end to innovation. According to Statista, the revenue of IoT in the healthcare market globally amounted to $24 billion in 2016, with predictions made stating that it will rise to $135 billion by 2025. With the implementation of IoT in the healthcare sector, it has become easy for patients and doctors to communicate between themselves and has also helped the medical experts to monitor the health status of their patients.
There are numerous possible ways where IoT can be and is implemented in the healthcare industry to serve better and avail better opportunities. Here we will be providing an overview of the implementation of IoT in this industry.
- IoT for Patients – The implementation of IoT in the healthcare industry has been a superpower for them. With this, the patients have been able to track their health themselves, and they now do not have to visit labs for tests. The integration of IoT in devices like Fitness bands to monitor your calories, track your gym routine and exercise, heart rate, number of steps walked in a day, and many more.
- IoT for Doctors – With the implementation of IoT in healthcare doctors can now monitor the health of their patients more proactively. With the data collected from these devices, doctors can see the improvements and analyze the data easily to provide better treatment to their patients.
- IoT for Hospitals – IoT for the healthcare industry has made things get done easier with efficiency, which in turn helps to serve the patients better. These IoT devices can also be used to track the location of any medical equipment, analysis of the deployment of medical staff members, pharmacy inventory management, check the temperature, and many more.
These are only a few of the implementations of IoT in the industry but there are more possibilities that are being explored and an innumerable number of opportunities that are still left to be explored in near future.
Transformation of IoT in the Healthcare Industry
IoT has uncountable benefits when implemented into the healthcare industry along with the superpower to make unbelievable transformations in the future. The pros of IoT in the healthcare industry are as follows.
- The implementation of IoT in healthcare facilitates the users with the alert mechanism. This feature allows sending signals when it notices changes in the routine activities of the person’s health and alerts the family member or concerned healthcare expert.
- It enhances and improves the treatment facilities that are being provided to the patients, with satisfied customers and improved patient health.
- It introduces new business opportunities with promised business safety and security against physical threats of the healthcare industry and the other things that are associated with it.
- It automates the work and saves enough time for the doctors and medical staff which also facilitates reduced operational costs.
- It tracks and collects data on the patient’s health and maintains a record that can be used to analyze the health status and provide advanced treatments.
- One major transformation made with the implementation of IoT in the healthcare sector is that it has highly reduced human labor and has made better use of the available resources, which in turn has served in fewer human errors and more effective and efficient work.
- Another important thing that can not remain unnoticed is that with IoT it has been possible to diagnose diseases at an early stage so that the physicians can provide early treatment and win their battle against deadly diseases.
- An added transformation that remains unnoticed by many of us is the robotic process of doing complex surgeries. IoT has truly made a huge difference in the healthcare industry. With the automated process and with IoT-connected devices now doctors are able to perform complex surgeries with less time consumption and even lesser complications in a patient’s health.
Conclusion
The amalgamation of IoT with the healthcare industry has unleashed the potential to keep everything under control and keep the patients safe and healthy along with improvised health records. Also, these IoT-connected devices can communicate with each other and make important decisions timely to save someone’s life.
One important aspect that might be coming to your mind is the cost of developing the IoT-connected system. Yes, the cost is an important factor when it comes to the integration of IoT in this health concerned industry, but that will definitely be a one-time investment and a smart move to provide the best healthcare services and keep a patient healthy and happy along with providing the other components of the healthcare system the ease to make things done effortlessly and efficiently.
Summing up, the future of innovation is yet to be explored and with time there are new possibilities coming up their way to improvise the healthcare system by providing better treatment and advanced services to the patients.
