Benefits and Challenges of IoT in Healthcare

With the increase in the global population, new and new diseases are increasing, and at this point, the healthcare industry is in a state of despair. Well, fortunately for us, technology has been reaching its newest heights, and therefore, IoT app development is here to the rescue! Recent research suggest that IoT, or IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) in this case, will save the healthcare industry about $300 billion! Besides, with IoT (Internet of Things), the healthcare industry can get efficient and accurate outputs.  

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Challenges of IoT in Healthcare

Although IoT brings many solutions, using it in the healthcare industry also has some challenges; some of them include: 

• Data Security/ Privacy: IoT devices capture and transmit real-time data, which means that they can attract significant security/ privacy threats. Unfortunately, most of the IoT devices require data standards and protocols. Moreover, data ownership regulation is ambiguous, as well.
• Data Aggregation: When working with medical records, data aggregation becomes difficult due to different communication standards and protocols. Moreover, the enormous amount of big data is received at such a tremendous speed that getting insights from it becomes very difficult for the doctors, impacting their decision-making process (up until Today).
• Integrations: Another challenge is the multiple devices and protocols integration, which hinders the very implementation of IoT in the healthcare department. Many device manufacturers haven't reached a consensus regarding communication protocols for IoT. Therefore even when devices are connected, different communication standards are followed, limiting the data collection process. Briefly, the non-uniformity of integrated devices slows down the entire data collection process and also reduces the scope of scalability for IoT.

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Benefits of IoT in Healthcare

When it comes to the benefits of IoT in healthcare, you can definitely get a lot of them. Previous research shows that 40% IoT devices are currently being used in the healthcare industry. Let's discuss some of the benefits the IoT offers: 

• Investigation Purposes: In the healthcare sector, IoT can be used for research purposes. It enables workers to collect enormous amounts of data regarding different illnesses, which would take years if recorded manually. This data collected can be used for statistical studies to support medical research. 
• RMD (Remote Medical Assistance): In case of emergency, RMDs allow patients to contact doctors and get immediate healthcare solutions via mobile apps, even when they are miles away. These mobility solutions identify patients' ailments on the go and allow medics to help patients receive urgent treatments. 
• Data Analysis: Healthcare devices receive enormous amounts of data on a daily basis, and it is hard to store and manage the data in the real-time application on time. In such situations, IoT devices come in handy because they can collect and report data; they also hold the capability to analyze data in real-time. This also cuts the need for storing raw data while all reporting and analysis are conducted over the cloud, and medics receive final documents with graphs.

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Wrapping up

IoT has opened a new world of infinite possibilities in medicine. Simultaneously, IoT offers many benefits for the healthcare industry, but it also brings many challenges alongside. Private and public sectors must join to overcome those challenges together. So we, as citizens, the benefit of the upcoming revolution in the healthcare industry.