3 factors fostering ‘The Internet of Medical Things’

While the world is waking up to the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) – for Healthcare, this is rather old news. For the longest time, large, expensive equipment like MRI and CT scanners have been monitored by their manufacturers. While it is true that this was primarily done for service and maintenance reasons, the fact that physical devices were connected and monitored through data networks actually makes them the forerunners to the IoT technology.

1. Connected Devices

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) first made its presence felt with network enabled infusion pumps and heart rate monitors. These were more in line with monitoring the functioning to ensure that the patient got the best possible care – thereby adding value to them and their healthcare providers. Today, nearly every piece of home-based medical equipment, including the likes of blood glucose, blood pressure monitors and digital thermometers are capable of connecting to the Internet. Most of them come with companion Apps. Even old school devices have made use of a USB dongle to give them data sharing capabilities. Case in point is Diabeto – which converts Wifi-less blood glucose monitors into digital blood glucose monitors. Add to this the capabilities of health and fitness trackers and smart watches, and the future only spells more connectivity!

2. Virtual Reality

Virtual reality has finally passed through all relevant hype cycles to now become a tangible service for our connected world. State-of-the-art devices like the Microsoft Hole Lens and the Oculus Rift are already in use in a variety of healthcare settings. The availability of cheaper devices like the Gear VR will only make this more convenient for Healthcare to harness and use Virtual Reality. Typical therapy areas that have been exploring the possibility of using VR technology include pain management, treatment of phobias, surgical training, operation procedure training and even cancer treatment!

3. Artificial Intelligence

One of the primary needs that today’s healthcare professionals have is the ability to sift through gigabytes of clinical studies, drug development and latest therapies to identify the one thing that can help their patients have better outcomes. Artificial Intelligence is an invaluable aid in helping them achieve this. Even today, an overwhelming portion of patient data exists in the form of unstructured data (physician notes, case histories, admission records, scanned reports etc.) This makes scanning through data to derive valuable insights not only difficult but well nigh impossible. With digitization of medical records this becomes much easier to manage and implement. Healthcare providers like Talix are using a combination of comprehensive medical taxonomy, advanced clinical natural language processing and sophisticated coding and clinical rules databases to make collecting, collating and analyzing patient data easier.

Even today, we are far from being a world with an impressive Internet of Medical Things. But the latest development and rapid strides being made in these key areas assures many of us that the day is not far when our healthcare systems and practitioners will make this an essential part of their arsenal. Only then will diagnosis get better, patient outcomes improve and the industry as a whole move to the next level!