Internet of Things (IoT) has penetrated almost every industry, and healthcare is not an exception. The last decade has witnessed a huge impact in the healthcare domain, thanks to IoT. With healthcare technologies gaining sophistication, patients can benefit from highly tailored attention concerning their healthcare requirements. With IoT, you have smart devices to remind you of your calorie count, appointments, exercise hours, variations in blood pressure and much more.
Let’s explore how IoT has been leveraging the medicine and IoT Solution for Healthcare Industry over the last few years.
IoT for Physicians
IoT enables wearables, and other equipment for home monitoring would allow physicians to track the health of patients with greater efficiency. They can even remotely track whether or not the patients are adhering to their treatment plans. In case they require any medical attention on an immediate basis, the physicians get to know and do the needful.
Besides, healthcare professionals can be more watchful with IoT devices, and this protective approach works well for patients. Similarly, they collect data using these devices and choose the right process of treatment to obtain the desired outcomes.
IoT for hospitals
In hospitals, sensors are integrated with IoT devices to keep a track on of medical equipment like defibrillators, wheelchairs, oxygen pumps and nebulizers in real-time. Besides, the authorities can analyze the deployment of healthcare staff in real-time at various locations.
Specific smart devices, enabled by IoT, can take care of infections. In the process, it can prevent patients from getting affected by the same.
Besides, IoT devices help in managing assets, such as environmental monitoring and pharmacy inventory control. Again, these smart devices have other functions in hospitals like temperature and humidity control, checking the temperature in refrigerators, etc.
Detecting medical errors
Inevitable medical mistakes are preventable, but unfortunately, they account for thousands of deaths each year. Deploying IoT helps in preventing these errors to a significant extent. These days, healthcare professionals use wristbands connected to IoT to verify the identity of patients. In the process, they eliminate the chances of mix-ups. Besides, these smart devices help medical staff in checking allergies and other medical data.
While recording data, machines do not make mistakes in typing, thereby eliminating human flaws. This makes IoT a valuable mechanism to check and sort patient data.
Managing operational costs
Over the years, healthcare is becoming expensive. The most strategic approach to control costs is to enhance efficiency and maintain quality. Using IoT, hospitals can automate their workflow and make significant savings in terms of money and time.
With IoT devices, it becomes easier and faster for transferring data, as compared to the manual efforts. The staff has a lesser amount of responsibilities to shoulder, which reduces the operational expenses. Besides, the risk of time-consuming and costly data entry errors is also low.
Apart from the benefits presented here, IoT has been playing a crucial role in controlling diseases. Cancer, arthritis, and obesity, for instance, affect millions of individuals across the globe each year. IoT serves as tools for disease management, through which patients and doctors can continuously monitor temperature, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. Eventually, it primarily serves as a preventive mechanism while dealing with chronic diseases. The coming years are likely to witness far more sophistication in the healthcare industry with intelligent systems.