IoT: Helping to Transform Healthcare

The Internet of Things is enabling faster emergency response times in the healthcare industry along with continuous and real-time monitoring of chronic diseases. What's more, it's enabling better healthcare services in remote areas.

- Dr Gopala Krishna

The Internet of Things (IoT) has made healthcare more accurate and quicker, with remote monitoring and real-time insights enhancing patient care.

IoT devices give direct, 24/7 x 365 access to the patient, while IoT-based analytics and automation allow health providers to access reports even before patients arrive at the hospital. This improves the responsiveness in case of a health emergency.

Healthcare uses IoT for data acquisition, data storage, real-time monitoring and device connection. IoT devices like wearables, connected pacemakers, and glucose monitors are improving health outcomes and reducing hospital visits for patients.

Today, healthcare institutions and hospitals offer remote monitoring, healthcare delivery, and in-home diagnostics capabilities that leverage machine learning and the Internet of Things.

IoT for patients: Wearables like fitness bands and other connected devices such as blood pressure and heart rate monitoring cuffs, glucometers, etc, track a patient's health condition. These devices can be tuned to monitor the calories burnt, blood pressure and pulse fluctuations, and other critical health parameters.

IoT-based connected devices and telehealth consultations can be as effective as in-person visits, providing much-needed access to healthcare for patients in rural locations.

IoT for doctors: Doctors can keep track of patients' health more effectively by using wearables and other home monitoring equipment embedded with IoT. These devices help monitor patients' response to treatment plans. Data collected from IoT-based applications can help doctors identify the best treatment process for patients.