The concept of virtual hospitals and virtual wards is used almost everywhere in the UK, Australia, America, and the Middle East. The concept of a virtual hospital was implemented in Sydney, Australia, in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic 60. The virtual hospital offers a remote service to the patient with the coronavirus using measuring and monitoring of pulse rate, heart rate, and temperature. The data are uploaded on the server and then communicated to the patient and virtual hospital through a mobile application. IoT is for better managing chronic disease, medical emergencies, better patient-care, fitness, blood pressure monitoring, health check system, measurement & control system, heart rate checking system, and hearing aids.
How do you ensure IoT implementation success?
The primary function of IoMT is monitoring patients’ conditions and notifying the doctor in case of an emergency. Besides the title, abstract, and keywords of the papers that have been found, a list of notable articles has been made based on certain criteria. On the other hand, studies that focus on technical concerns and security challenges were left out of the analysis. The abstracts and titles of some of the studies were reviewed separately, to see if they met the criteria for being included. The procedure for search and selection of research material is illustrated in Figure 2.
1.5. Services
That is, as a result of swift and effective policy choices and widespread use of digital technology 71,72. This indicates that a sophisticated technology-based test-and-trace system may be a viable tool for pandemic preparedness, provided all other safety measures are followed and rigorous policy choices are enforced. In the results, 90 elements were identified as barriers or facilitators for IoT technology adoption and were classified in the different categories of factors from the extraction grid. As Figure 6 shows, these elements were classified as facilitators for IoT adoption in healthcare and barriers.
Use Cases of IoT in Healthcare
- Murata is committed to the development of advanced electronic materials and leading edge, multi-functional, high-density modules.
- No wonder that a lot of enterprises like Google and Apple invest resources into the Internet of Things technology.
- The connectivity between AFE and the microcontroller is usually established by communication protocols such as I2C, SPI, and UART.
- Furthermore, it has been suggested that centralized cloud storage will present issues in the future to users, such as excessive data accumulation and latency because of the distance between IoT devices and data centers.
- It allows caregivers, family members, and friends to inform older people about any emergency and the hazardous situation in the house or healthcare center.
In location-based technology, a real-time location system is used for the treatment of the patient with the resources available at patient’s position within the healthcare system. The global positioning system (GPS) is a widely used technology for tracking purposes. All communication technologies are used to locate a COVID-19 patient, ambulance, emergency services, healthcare centers, vaccination centers, etc. During pandemic crises, the smart grids need to provide uninterrupted power supply to the hospitals, healthcare units, and any healthcare infrastructure. Smart grids consist of sensors and transducers used to monitor the supply and demand of electricity 65, and the AMI performs this task.
With the help of a sensor chip, technology that is part of the IoT, the accumulation of personal medical information is stored and monitored in real-time. The transmission of sensitive medical data occurs in real-time via a mobile device only, such as a smartphone. A healthcare system based on a Random Forest Classifier and the IoT was proposed by Kaur et al. 29 to improve interactions between patients and healthcare professionals. The experimental results were compiled using eight datasets on different diseases to determine whether the proposed work is successful or not. According to the authors, the Random Forest learning technique achieved a maximum accuracy of 97.26% when applied to the dermatology dataset. In addition, it was claimed that Random Forest provided good and accurate results for each dataset considered.
Consumable Sensors
Gunawan has developed an IoT-based temperature monitoring system using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. The temperature data were stored in the database and were displayed on a web page, which could be accessed through a desktop or a mobile phone 86. In another study 87, wearable and lightweight sensors were used for real-time measurement of the body temperature in infants. It can also alert the parents whenever there is a rise in temperature above a critical value.
Gupta outlines a healthcare-monitoring system using the IoT for obese patients 21. The prototype is a fully functional device that measures body characteristics such as HR, SpO2, BP, and BT. The system uses an Arduino board to store medical data for multiple patients simultaneously, and then, sends the information to healthcare providers via a Wi-Fi module for remote monitoring. Clinicians can use the recorded data to examine patients’ health patterns over time in order to detect any changes that may indicate an underlying, undetected health problem. IoT-enabled smart hospitals leverage connected devices, sensors, and automation to optimize operations, enhance patient care, and improve staff efficiency. Smart hospital solutions include asset tracking, environmental monitoring, and patient flow management systems.
In the medical field, IoT has a different application to create innovation during COVID-19 Pandemic. It is the best technique to track patients and staff, thereby reducing the waiting time. With smart devices like blood-gas analysers, thermometer, smart bed, glucose meter, ultrasound, and X-rays, there is an improvement in inpatient care. This technology can easily monitor patient health and makes an accurate decision during complex cases.108, 109, 110 By continuously checking the health status, it alerts about any upcoming diseases and provides a solution for its prevention. It is helpful in the detection of an asthma attack and a reminder of medication on time. Patients with severe injuries or from certain areas may have difficulty reaching the hospital.
Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS)
- Gold nanoparticle (GNP) array-based artificially intelligent chemiresistive volatile gas-monitoring sensor devices have been designed for detecting preeclampsia, a hypertensive disorder during pregnancy 72.
- It is finding an application in the healthcare system by assisting patients, physicians, and staff of the healthcare center 69.
- Today we have an interconnected network of intelligent devices capable of making decisions, work as groups, and send information to the cloud — Internet of Things.
- It has been shown that the IoT, in conjunction with smart technologies, can provide various improved and enhanced services.
IoT adoption technology factors represented 19 elements (31%) of the extracted elements. As shown in Figure 8 the most common factor identified was perceived usefulness factor, which was repeated six times 14,46,48,53,59,60. The professionals believed that the perceived usefulness factor in IoT adoption in healthcare is an essential factor as it improves their working conditions. The specialist is looking for technology that is easy to use during their duties. Performance expectancy factor is repeated four times 43,45,46,48, and effort expectation factor is repeated three times 14,43,46. Effort expectations are streamlined with the consensus based on the belief of the professionals that the use of IoT technology would be without effort.
The annual expenses for spinal care in the USA are around USD 110 billion and are expected to reach up to USD 5.3 trillion by 2025 https://www.yaldex.com/press-releases/medical/health-restoration-academy-arizona.htm (Rasouli et al., 2021). In addition to this, there is a huge difference in the opinions, delivery of services, care, and the costs of surgeries among different countries or even among different hospitals in the same country. Ames et al. suggested that the use of AI in these surgical treatments may help to define the quality and expenses of treatments and care.