Healthcare IoT is set to be a market worth over $400 billion dollars by 2022. Getting involved with this technological innovation is sensible. Many healthcare businesses, large and small, have already made the switch and it’s easy to see why: savings and profitable expansion. CEOs of IoT enterprises need to know the regions of medicine most amenable to IoT innovation to understand its importance.
Three primary categories where IoT is especially useful in healthcare, and which are worth demonstrating to potential clients, include:
- Workflow optimization
- Inventory management
- Integration of medical devices
- Workflow Optimization
IoT provides analytics. Analytics provide pattern identification. Pattern recognition allows healthcare facilities to see where energies are wasted and where they’re doing good. When operational practices can be consolidated, clients know where to concentrate efforts for greatest success. IoT solutions provide analytics to help your clients cut thousands of dollars in unnecessarily wasted time from operations.
Inventory Management
Healthcare IoT can help them understand what inventory looks like in the fourth dimension: time. Through a single device, everything throughout a healthcare campus can be cohesively monitored contemporaneously. Should a device give out, it can be immediately replaced. There are many applications here to consider, and the best way to manage inventory particular to a client is to design a system which best fits them.
Medical Device Integration
Tablets, smartphones, smart watches, smart refrigerators, smart patient monitoring machines, smart X-rays, smart MRIs— the list goes on and you get the idea: virtually all medical equipment can be turned into IoT tech with slight optimization; such transformation may be something wise for your IoT agency to provide.
Through such solutions it then becomes possible for patients to be monitored in real time. From there, notifications can be sent out if something anomalous begins to characterize vital signs. Friends and family members of patients can watch operations remotely and be notified the moment an operation is finished. As IoT continues to expand, more integration will follow— this is a selling point.
Specific Areas Where IoT Is Taking Off
There are six main categories which define how IoT is expanding in the healthcare industry today:
- Wearable devices
- Sensory tech
- Analytics
- Chronic disease increase
- More cost-effective treatment
- Expedited Internet access
Did you know there are smart shirts today? Did you know there are smart lenses as well? And smart wristbands? These can give detailed, accurate vitals which a doctor can monitor between multiple patients simultaneously. Contact lenses can correct vision and provide for expanded utility. A smart shirt can be connected to cybernetic augmentation, and it can send a signal if something begins to impede a patient. If your IoT organization doesn’t yet provide such solutions, now might be a time to start considering them.
Sensory technology is more affordable than ever, and that trend is increasing, driving IoT expansion. More available sensory tech leads to more accurate analytical data. This is especially considerable in light of globally increasing chronic disease. Much of this disease is preventable. As trends are identified, medical institutions help educate patients and the general public pertaining to unhealthy activities.
As sensory tech decreases and analytics increase, costs associated with acquiring new sensory tech are curbed, and resources expand as analytics demonstrate redundant operational areas. This means treatment can be offered more cost-effectively, giving an IoT-utilizing medical institution competitive edge in the local market.
Finally, consider edge computing, an innovation by which IoT devices are used as a sort of floated “cloud” atop existing networks. Each device processes some quotient of data, expanding high-speed Internet and expediting Internet access.
Expanding Healthcare Effectiveness
Healthcare IoT has notable advantages and there’s only really one hazard to consider: security. With IoT, there are increased vulnerabilities which hackers may try to exploit. The key is providing IoT security solutions to clients in addition to game-changing innovative services. Do that and they can enjoy expedited operational ability in an infrastructural sense, increased clientele through customer satisfaction, and disease reduction through pattern recognition. That makes your IoT agency very valuable to clients. The Internet of Things is truly revolutionizing healthcare, and if you can show potential clients this reality, you’ll see increased conversions.