IoT in Healthcare : Use Cases and Benefits

Patient interactions with the healthcare system are not possible without equipment and devices. Neither there existed a way doctors or hospitals could monitor patients’ health continuously while keeping patients in loop i.e. giving them recommendations. Until we saw the Internet of Things coming into the health ecosystem.

The Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare with its wide range of products to diagnose, monitor, and treat patients remotely has led to a dramatic revolution in the healthcare industry.

IoT enabled devices have made remote monitoring in healthcare an easy feat by empowering physicians and healthcare organizations to achieve better patient outcomes, lower healthcare costs and improve treatment outcomes.

Undoubtedly, IoT has redefined the healthcare space and unlocked its potential in all applications of healthcare to benefit patients, hospitals and health insurance companies.

How IoT is Helping Patients and Keeping them Safe

Individual Health Monitoring

Wearable health monitoring devices like fitness bands or smart wristbands and other wirelessly connected devices like blood pressure and heart rate monitoring cuffs, glucometer, etc. helps patients in tracking exercise, calorie count, and tune into sleeping patterns, monitor heart rate, blood pressure variations and much more.

These wearable devices have transformed the lives of patients by giving them personalized attention where they can constantly keep a check and track on their health conditions. Especially, it has turned as an elixir for elderly patients and aged citizens who are living alone.

On any disturbance or changes in the routine activities these connected devices (which are also tied to healthcare mobile apps) send alerts to connected health providers and family members.

How IoT is Helping Physicians in Providing Quality Care

If we discuss, what’s beyond remote patient monitoring where IoT devices are useful; it is devices with sensors. IoT devices tagged with sensors are used for finding and tracking the real-time location of medical equipment, assets in ICU, solutions and other healthcare facilities.

Be it defibrillators, nebulizers, oxygen pumps or any health monitoring asset; Connected devices have the ability to determine the exact location of needed tools with full accuracy.

And when surgeons and physicians can provide treatment without any interruption by challenges like misplaced equipment they can provide seamless care with increased job satisfaction.

Apart from this, IoT enabled hygiene monitoring devices to help in preventing patients from getting exposed to infection. For pharmacists, IoT enabled Find and Track solutions can help in asset management, inventory control, temperature monitoring of time-sensitive medicines and more.

How IoT Opens Opportunities for Healthcare Insurance Company

Connected devices allow health insurers to build a targeted customer base and enhance customer relationships by helping them interact with their customers more frequently to offer new services based on the data they have collected through IoT devices.

The data insights collected by connected devices help insurers to develop new service and business models and monetize through them.

In a nutshell, IoT technologies enable insurance companies to determine risks more precisely and create more compelling IoT offerings.

Conclusion:

Technological advancements in healthcare solutions and the increasing role of healthcare-specific IoT products have opened up a new avenue of opportunities to provide quality care and reduce costs. The massive amount of data generated by these connected devices is transforming healthcare at another level.

If you want to integrate IoT enabled solution in your existing healthcare app or are looking to leverage the power of IoT in your organization, Codiant is your trusted technology partner.