What is IoT in healthcare?
Wearable medical devices can be categorized into type, application, device type, distribution channel, and region. According to a research in Markets and Markets, these categories can be further classified as follows:
- Type – smartwatches, patches, smart clothing, and activity monitors
- Applications – sports and fitness, remote patient monitoring, and home healthcare
- Distribution channel – pharmacies, online channel, and hypermarkets
- Region – North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World (RoW)
The IoT in healthcare market is on its unstoppable roll
The rise of demands for wearable medical devices and health-related technological innovations made healthcare the new platform for computing advancements. In fact, its market is expected to hit USD 14.41 Billion by 2022. Thus, the medical developments are no longer limited to the high-end construction of machines and laboratory instruments for the use of medical professionals, rather it has taken its leap into the hands of the masses. And so, IoT in healthcare became a buzzword.
What constitutes to this inevitable growth of the wearable medical device market? The increasing capability of smartphones allows its penetration into the medical field as more and more smartphone-based healthcare applications are made compatible with wearable devices. This affirmation on the need for healthcare in this age and the increasing awareness of physical fitness became an effective driving force for this market growth. Thus, IoT in healthcare, the sensor technology for the medical field, became one of the most sought after products and services.
Reasons behind the Popularity of IoT in healthcare
IoT in healthcare became one of the fastest growing markets because of several shifts in human spending and lifestyle. Some of these include the growing adoption of sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles that leads to the high prevalence of lifestyle diseases. As a result, this increases people’s awareness of fitness and in health and the demand for IoT in healthcare followed through. The increase in focus on physical fitness became the manifestation of people’s efforts in improving their quality of life by tracking their health progress. This paved the way for the common person’s interest and increasing demand for self-monitoring and non-invasive monitoring and diagnosis using wearable medical devices.
Three of the Most Popular IoT in healthcare to Get Your Hands on
Here three of the recent innovations of IoT in healthcare that can make everyone hope for the technology that can further extend human life expectancy:
- The Kardia Heart Health Monitor – a mobile app and IoT sensor that can detect a heart attack before it even happened. It monitors a patient’s heart health by keeping track of the data through a mobile app. If the app detects a possible heart arrhythmia, it prompts the user to record an EKG.
- Diabetes Management from Diabnext – On of their gadgets, Diabnext’s Clipsulin monitors insulin dosages and records the information to an application on the user’s mobile phone, while Diabnext’s Gluconext is attached to a patient’s glucose meter and provides real-time glucose levels and testing result updates.
- Securing Alzheimer’s Patient at Home – Theocare is a smartwatch that can send the patient’s data and whereabouts over a secure AT&T network connection to a caregiver. This can alert the caregiver if the patient is out of the designated “safe” zone. It also allows for two-way audio communications.
Benefits of IoT in Healthcare
The popularity of IoT in healthcare is not just a trend out of fashion or curiosity. It will not fade that easily because it taps the major concerns of people living in very unhealthy environments that develop unhealthy habits and lifestyle — health and medical expenses. These are the benefits of IoT in healthcare that made it to the top of technological enhancement in recent years:
- IoT in healthcare provided clients with full control over their health as they take on the health monitoring on a daily basis to keep themselves in perfect shape. Once this commitment for a healthy lifestyle is paired with access to knowledge about their symptoms and conditions, it would be easier for a common person to understand the condition of the body and adjust depending on their health demands. It is better that people prevent themselves from getting sick than using IoT in healthcare in grave cases of health concerns.
- Time and money are two resources we spend so much in health issues. Limiting the expenditures on these two just to keep us healthy means fewer visits with the doctor and more savings for health. IoT in healthcare serves as your technology that can help prevent diseases if you commit to staying healthy, while it can help you monitoring existing and unavoidable diseases so they won’t worsen.
- IoT in healthcare provides doctors and medical experts the access to real-time information about patients that can help increase efficiency in medical services.
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