The Internet of Things in the healthcare sector isn’t just a tool for capturing patient data more accurately – it also brings the supply chain into a new era that could save lives, as well as vast sums of money
By using RFID, healthcare providers can track inventory more accurately, removing the risk of over or under stocking
The Internet of Things (IoT) is already changing the way we interact with our homes and bringing new meaning to ‘practical clothing’. Now, the healthcare sector too is beginning to see the fruits of IoT, which can drastically improve patient care and case management. Through the use of biometric sensors, 24/7 remote monitoring is now a reality – and a convenient one at that – allowing providers to shift from risky and costly reactive care to the preventative kind.
Wearable tech can also provide invaluable new insights into diseases. As Brian Ray, CTO of Link Labs, a Maryland-based start-up that offers IoT solutions, explained: “If you can gather more data from patients – like when they take medicine, what their vitals are, what their blood sugar is, how active they are – you can aggregate large amounts of data across populations to model for trends. Then you can identify patients at risk based on those models.” With less time spent collating data, healthcare professionals can spend far more time analysing, and therefore truly understanding, human health and disease.