IoT in Healthcare: Market Overview, IoMT System Architecture, Use Cases

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions enable continuous health data collection (e.g., body temperature, blood pressure), early symptom detection, alerting on abnormal health parameters, and more. RPM solutions provide patients with accessible care, improve care continuity, patient support and engagement.

How IoT-enabled patient monitoring works: Connected medical devices (e.g., ECG patches, EEG sensors, glucometers) or wearable biosensors collect health parameters and send them to a cloud server for storage and analysis. If the health parameters exceed or go below the pre-set thresholds, a doctor and a patient get notified.

Use cases:

• Monitoring patients with chronic diseases like cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s disease), COPD, cancer.
• After-surgery monitoring of outpatients.
• Advanced analytics for diagnostic monitoring to detect the early symptoms of diseases (e.g., prediabetes, arrhythmia).
• Analytics to identify disease course patterns and potential complications.
• Monitoring of medication adherence (e.g., using smart medication dispensing devices for geriatric patients, smart pill bottles).
• Sports medicine.

Hospital asset tracking solutions help minimize asset loss and theft and deliver patient care more efficiently due to decreased search time of medical supplies, medications, etc.

How IoT-enabled hospital asset tracking works: RFID tags are attached to or embedded into hospital assets (e.g., medical devices, surgical tools). When an asset is moved, RFID readers located in the hospital rooms or halls (e.g., on the walls, by the doors) read the tag and send information on the asset location to the cloud server. The hospital asset tracking solution can display movable assets on an interactive hospital map or show the nearest assets upon a search request.

Use cases:

• Medication inventory tracking.
• Hospital equipment utilization monitoring (e.g., MRI scanners).
• Prevention of hospital items use by unauthorized people.

Monitoring the location of patients and medical staff in hospitals enhances security, helps identify and address inefficiencies in the staffing and scheduling processes of a healthcare organization (e.g., lack of on-duty nurses), and improves bed allocation.

How IoT-enabled patient and staff tracking works: Each patient and staff member gets a bracelet with an RFID tag containing relevant information (e.g., ID, name, position, electronic medical record, current health condition). When a patient or a staff member moves around the hospital, RFID readers on the hospital walls and ceilings receive the tag’s location and send it to the cloud server for further processing and analysis.

Use cases:

• Patient safety monitoring in hospitals.
• Prevention of infant abduction.
• Monitoring of flight-risk patients.
• Staff location monitoring in emergency rooms.
• Patient flow optimization in hospitals.

Smart hospital use cases are numerous – from room environment monitoring to the identification of security incidents (e.g., unsolicited access to a laboratory). Smart hospital solutions bring benefits like decreased power, water consumption and associated expenses, optimized ward conditions to support patients’ recovery, etc.

How IoT-enabled smart hospital solution works: Using sensors (e.g., motion sensors, temperature sensors), a smart hospital solution collects necessary information about a room condition to analyze and initiate a set of pre-defined actions. For example, when the motion is detected, the solution turns on the lights; when the ward temperature is above 77 degrees, the solution turns on air conditioning.

Use cases:

• Climate control (e.g., to maintain a lower temperature in empty wards, adapt ward humidity).
• Smart room lighting.
• Hospital energy efficiency monitoring.
• Hospital security monitoring.

Used primarily for patients with chronic diseases, remote care delivery IoT solutions facilitate patient treatment in home settings, ensuring secure and efficient care decisions without the direct participation of the doctor.

How IoT-based self-management for patients with chronic diseases works: Via the connected medical devices or sensors, the IoMT solution gets data on patients’ health state, and, if necessary, triggers the treatment delivery (e.g., insulin injection using an insulin pump), calculates the necessary medication dose, etc.

Use cases:

• Diabetes management (e.g., using continuous glucose monitors, smart insulin pens, continuous glucose monitors, smart insulin pumps, or closed-loop artificial pancreas systems).
• IoT-based spirometer therapy for patients with COPD.