The use of Internet of Things (IoT for its abbreviation in English) in health service provision has increased considerably. Its most tangible benefits are in the diagnosis and control of diseases, as well as the quick information management.
In the last years there have risen several initiatives to incorporate Internet of Things in health services. Until now, most of them revolved around the improvement of care as such, with the monitoring of some markers and the follow up of complicated cases from home. However, this cases have been just the beginning.
More advanced and integrated approaches are being used to transform digital health services with the data where IoT has an increasingly important role. With the help of objects connected to an health ecosystem, the work of health personal can be more immediate and precise, in addition to facilitating the management of hospital centers or the health units that provide primary care, and with it improve the patients wellbeing.
The medical spectrum in which IoT can enter is vast; it is an ecosystem so big that it starts to include new technologies for self monitoring, the pharmaceutics industry, health care insurance, facility or buildings construction that will subsequently provide medical care, robotics, biosensors, smart beds, smart pills, tvmedicine, among others.
It’s a fact that including this kind of technology can achieve reduction in inattentions in health units. For example, there are smart beds capable of self monitoring and warning as soon as they are unoccupied, alternating as well, regulating the pressure and position of the patient to save time and that personal has the availability to focus in every user in the same way.
The entrance of IoT to health sector does not arrive without challenge. Information of health status of patients is delicate and requires accurate sensors and the algorithms that interpret them calibrated. At the same time, patients should be assured that private information will not be shared or published by any way without their consent.
Another important challenge that IoT faces is the economic gap that exists in Latin America. To exploit the potential of new technologies in their whole, the use of smartphones and wearables is essential, but the access to these devices is not universal. AS response to these problematic governments in countries like Argentina, Peru, Chile y Brazil along with private medias have initiated the agreements to achieve the democratization of the use of mobile devices thought subsidized rates and reduced costs.
Through this effort we are searching to start a long term project that will connect medical services in Latin America along with its patients in a useful and permanent way that uses Digital Health with all its developments to assure a better medical future for population.
Know more about research of the benefits of Internet of Things in the following link:
https://www.i-scoop.eu/internet-of-things-guide/internet-things-healthcare/
