IoT Poised to Disrupt Healthcare Industry

The entire healthcare industry is poised to undergo an unprecedented transformation as a result of technology advances and healthcare access concerns due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced hundreds of millions of people worldwide to change their behaviors in terms of the way they obtain healthcare services, according to a report by ResearchAndMarkets. 

The report’s findings include substantial growth in the healthcare industry, largely propelled by IoT technology and applications deployed in a cloud-based as-a-service for health status monitoring, wellness and acute care. Additional enablers include high-speed connectivity, embedded sensor solutions and wearable applications. 

These technologies are anticipated to transform the entire healthcare ecosystem, leading to significantly improved remote healthcare services. along with maximizing patient outreach and minimizing operational costs. 

Various Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT) technologies will be game-changers for the healthcare ecosystem in the coming decade in terms of systems, processes and services delivery. There is great potential to increase efficiency and effectiveness in treatment and diagnosis, cost reduction, and improving the overall standards for patient care. 

Overall, IoHT solutions will address a few important areas in the healthcare sector, including reduction of transmission of hospital-acquired infections to patients. Other areas include providing core functionalities required by clinicians, front-office, billing staff and physicians. 

It will also help healthcare providers with predictive analytics, connecting medical devices with web applications, optimizing physical assets, and automating healthcare operations. 

While many aspects of IoT in healthcare leverages low bandwidth connectivity, certain aspects of telehealth require sufficient capacity that might only be derived from fiber or 5G.