Securing healthcare connectivity to improve patient digital experiences

The imminent surge of loT devices, including medical equipment, presents opportunities to revolutionize patient care, yet it brings security challenges that healthcare organizations must address

- Prakash Krishnamoorthy

For the past 15-20 years, the healthcare industry has been navigating the tricky waters of digital transformation. The telemedicine market has the maximum potential in the eHealth segment in India. It is expected to reach US$5.4 billion by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31%, according to the Inc42 Plus report titled India's eHealth Market Opportunity Report. 

Within the past decade alone, we've seen an explosion of new forms of healthcare come prominence, from telehealth to fully digitally managed care - all of which organizations have had to grapple with.

Fast forward to 2025, and there will be an estimated 30 billion connected loT devices on the planet, a sizeable portion of which will include both personal and health-provider-issued medical devices. These could take the form of anything from smart displays in patients' rooms and glucose monitoring systems to digital hearing aids or responsive lighting and temperature controls.

Patients, family members, and healthcare staff not only have high expectations for such devices and the applications used, but also for how secure their data is. As the type of devices used increases and our level of interaction with them grows, these expectations will only rise. For many healthcare organizations, meeting this demand will require major investment - from creating entirely new systems to support and host vast amounts of patient data and connecting hundreds if not thousands of wireless and wired medical devices to healthcare networks, to updating existing infrastructure to make sure patients' experiences are seamless.