Literature Review of Internet of Things and Healthcare

The information technology and internet has changed the world in so many ways. The mankind is able to achieve so much with these, which never looked possible before such technologies. The Internet of things (IoT) is becoming popular in every industry, and businesses have begun to take various benefits. In such great influence, it was not possible that healthcare industry remain behind from any other field. It has been expected that in the next era, there will be connection between internet and physical things like appliances, goods, machines, and even human; everything will be connected through internet. It is important to understand that why it will happen like this. The IoT has so many aspects along with potential benefits that every industry including healthcare has to consider it. IoT has the potential to change the way medical industry is managing its processes (Bhatt & Bhatt, 2017)

Before looking at its role in medical and healthcare field, it is important to review literature to so that IoT can simply be understood, and then its application in the healthcare sector is reviewed with relevant information. IoT is a concept, which is quickly gaining its ground and the way things are improving with it, the future looks a brighter one for every other sector. There can be different kind of technology like sensors can be used to achieve IoT. The one good example in this regard is a parking area, where one needs to have information whether the parking area is full, and which parts of it are empty. The user can use RFID sensors for this purpose, which will identify that which parking space is empty and which one is captured, and data can easily be at one hand. This is just one common use of IoT to increase utility in the lives of people (Bhatt & Bhatt, 2017)

After reviewing a common use of IoT, it is important to look at its application in the healthcare field. The use of IoT can be associated with the context analysis, data communication, and information processing. There can be large amount of data in healthcare sector, which needs to be properly managed in a quick and effective manner that people involved in the process can take as much benefits as possible. There are different technologies such as machine learning, cloud computing and wireless communication with the use of internet can achieve amazing results for the healthcare field, if things are used and managed in appropriate manner. The concept of IoT can help to realize the dream of smart healthcare, where information is processed and accessed by all stakeholders through their connected system and devices. The use of IoT can achieve different things in the healthcare field like it can bring an evolution in the medical field by reducing all relevant costs as well as it can personalize the treatment and management choices for the people (Dey, Ashour, & Bhatt, 2016)

The things can be complex to understand the overall architecture linked with IoT as without a proper architecture, it is almost impossible to achieve the desired results with the help of IoT. Dey, Ashour, & Bhatt (2016) has discussed about different layers, which are part of the system. The first one in this regard is sensor layer, which is equipped with sensors along with small objects. The next one is network and gateway layer, where little sensors help to develop large amount of data that has to be processed through an integrated network infrastructure. The management service layer is very crucial in the system as it helps to process information with required security controls. The last layer from the important layers is application layer, which has various applications to run the system of IoT. It is important that healthcare field understand the role and performance of each of these layers (Dey, Ashour, & Bhatt, 2016)

The application of IoT in the healthcare sector can have different dimensions. It can help in critical treatments that can be highly risky for life, and for patients, it is easy to have routine check-ups as well as medicine. The IoT can also help the patients and other stakeholders in managing the critical treatments by connecting people to collect and process data in an effective manner. There is a traditional system of hospitals, where patients have to be physically there for their routine check-ups, and the issue is transportation of patients for routine check-ups, and long queues waiting for their turns in the hospitals, which makes hospitals a place with too much people. The real essence of IoT is its ability to change this traditional healthcare system. IoT has the ability to connect patients with required doctors through the use of smart devices like smart phones, and people may not have any restriction of visiting the doctor with physical appearance rather it is done though internet on any smart device (Bhatt & Bhatt, 2017

There are several applications and medical devices, which can be connected through internet and these can be managed from anywhere with the help of sensors, which are used in IoT. The system developed through IoT can be intelligent enough to store transform and process the information. For instance, a physician can get access to patient’s data to monitor his/her health in real time. When physician has access to such critical information with such ease, it overall improves the patient’s health experience. The examples for such applications managed through IoT are many like one application is heart rate monitor. This device has the ability to keep check of the heart rate of patent such as its respiration rate, variability & reliability of heart rate, body position as well as activity of the heart. The other common medical application is used to manage the monitoring process of aging individuals, which allows the monitoring of aging people health (Dey, Ashour, & Bhatt, 2016)

As mentioned above that there are various medical devices, which can play their part in enhancing the role of IoT in the healthcare field. So, it is necessary to review such devices being used in the real world application. Moreover, the devices can have different architectures to process the information and data in an efficient manner. Klonoff (2017) tried to look for the performance of medical devices by looking at available architectures. The use of IoT for the Diabetes medical devices is a common thing. These devices include continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, insulin pens, closed-loop systems, and blood glucose monitors. All of these devices are linked with the Diabetes and its monitoring. Klonoff (2017) tried to monitor that why cloud computing is not able to manage the data for these devices, and why these devices need either edge computing or fog computing.

To analyze the performance of Diabetes devices in the cloud, fog and edge computing; first it is essential to look at each computing system to understand their relevant processes. The fog computing term was initiated in 2014 by Cisco Systems. This concept was to provide down to earth data processing, which is more near to the patient. The edge computing term is used since 2002, and as per edge computing, the data is collected and then it provides an entry point for the data through internet or a network. These two computing systems are being discussed for medical devices, because these can have five advantages as compared to the cloud computing. Like a cloud computing system may be slower to respond and it may have various security concerns as compared to the edge and fog computing. That’s why the use of edge and fog computing is more considerable than cloud computing (Klonoff, 2017)

According to Klonoff (2017), there are various Diabetes devices which are using the fog computing systems. The good example is the use of Diabetes devices through Bluetooth communication, where smart phone is attached to the device, and it works as a fog computing, where the information processing system is not far in the clouds, rather it is near to the patient like fog is near to the surface of the Earth. If there is wireless Diabetes medical device, then it can use the architecture of fog computing to process and transfer the information of the patient being gathered by the application. The data can always be accessed through cloud computing from any device through internet, but disadvantage of sing fog computing through devices like Smartphone is the availability of the device. It means that if device is not available due to some reason like Smartphone is broken or it is not working, then processed information would stop to respond to give real time stats. Moreover, there are various medical devices, which are using the edge computing rather using cloud computing; for example the devices like cardiac defibrillators, cardiac pacemakers, and mechanical ventilation systems with closed-loop (Klonoff, 2017)

The above mentioned literature review is a good enough indication that how IoT is going to get increased space in the field of healthcare, because the patients as well as medical professional are looking for more medical devices being managed with the help of IoT to make smart healthcare as a reality. There are various devices being used in the medical field like diabetes monitoring devices as well as devices monitoring heart related data. All of these devices need to get more sophisticated with the improvement in technology so that gains from IoT in this field can be multiplied as much as possible. The role of IoT in the healthcare sector is going to increase with the passage of time, and with more developed technologies, it would be great potential for patients and doctors to improve the healthcare experience. The way thing are moving, it is evident that IoT is going to be the future for healthcare sector, which would limit the physical environment, and encourage the cloud environment to store, transfer and process the data.

References of Internet of Things and Healthcare

Bhatt, Y., & Bhatt, C. (2017). Internet of Things in HealthCare. Springer International Publishing.

Dey, N., Ashour, A. S., & Bhatt, C. (2016). Internet of Things Driven Connected. In Co-creation and Participatory Design of Big Data Infrastructures on the Field of Human Health Related Climate Services. Springer International Publishing.

Klonoff, D. C. (2017). Fog Computing and Edge Computing Architectures for Processing Data Architectures for Processing Data the Medical Internet of Things. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology , 11 (4), 647–652.