The medical or healthcare industry is the most significant industry that contributes to life on the earth as without this industry enhancement, we will not be able to fight against upcoming deadly diseases. Just not only in the matter of life, but this industry has been contributing well in the global market with a boosting net worth. The global healthcare services market is expected to be worth $13.31 trillion in 2024. This is a growth from $8,348.44 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4%. These numbers are quite enough to tell the existence of the healthcare industry in terms of finances.
Many advanced technologies have been implemented in the healthcare industry that make patient care more better than ever. IoT or the Internet of Technology is one of the tools or technologies that have been implemented in the healthcare industry. The ability to monitor, detect, and sense proves very beneficial for patients as well as for other aspects too.
With the IoT solutions, it is possible to monitor the patient’s condition in real-time. Also, gather data with more accuracy than manually, improve patient safety with different devices and solutions. Also, it provides convenient and personalized experiences to patients, remote patient care, insights based decision-making, also can offer predictive analytics if integrated with artificial intelligence etc. Many other things make IoT an incredible technology for patients’ condition tracking systems and monitoring. We will see more benefits as we move forward in the article.
Overview
Just not in the healthcare industry, but IoT has been contributing to other sectors like IT, manufacturing, businesses, education, etc for many years and settled a well-grown market size at the global level. The global Internet of Things (IoT) market size was valued at USD 595.73 billion in 2023. The market is projected to grow from USD 714.48 billion in 2024 to USD 4,062.34 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 24.3% during the forecast period. On the other hand, the global IoT in Healthcare Market size is expected to grow from USD 127.7 billion in 2023 to USD 289.2 billion by 2028, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17.8% over the forecast period.
In this article, we will focus on the role of IoT in transforming patient care with IoT-driven patient tracking systems. We will see some other details like benefits and challenges. At the end, we will give a brief sum-up paragraph for the whole discussion.
What is an IoT Driven Patient Tracking System?
IoT is an incredible technology without a doubt that can have various use cases for patient care. One of the most important use cases can be the patient condition tracking system that enables remote monitoring at best. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are used by an IoT-driven patient tracking system to gather and send real-time patient health data to healthcare practitioners. IoT-driven patient care systems are designed in such a way that transmit a patient’s health data to a doctor or a medical staff in real-time. For example, Wipro EngineeringNXT’s IoT-enabled, patient-tracking solution is designed for next-generation patient monitoring.
Also Read: The Impact of AI On Hospital Management Systems
Benefits of IoT-Driven Patient Caring System for Transforming Patient Care
There are a lot of benefits of a driven patient-care system for transforming patient care. Here are a few key benefits mentioned below.
Real-Time Monitoring and Caring
Real-time monitoring is a important aspect of patient care as it gives a proper idea about the ongoing treatment effect. The IoT-powered wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness bands, etc can integrate into the patient’s body that detect the blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, etc aspects of the patient body. Any risk factor detection can alert the doctors or any other related person to the patient.
Remote Patient Monitoring
Caring for patients and monitoring their condition is very important when they are in hospitals but it is also important to keep an eye on their condition when they are away from the healthcare organization. With the IoT-driven patient caring system, remote monitoring is possible that informs every movement about the patient while they are at home, outside, at work, etc.
Increases Cost Efficiency
Cost efficiency is very crucial for healthcare organizations as well as for patients. With the IoT-driven patient care system, cost efficiency can increase reducing readmission rates, detecting and preventing hospital-acquired infections, and improving resource utilization. Patients also can save costs by preventing unnecessary emergency visits and hospital stays with remote monitoring facilities.
Improved Communication and Collaboration
IoT-driven patient care systems not only care for the patient in a better way. It also enhance communication and collaboration within the healthcare organization. There can be various team members for caring for patients and data plays an important role in ensuring better collaboration. IoT-based systems can offer data to every member in real time that helps them to make quick, right, and collaborative decisions for the benefit of the patient.
Predictive Analytics for Patient Care
IoT can gather vast amounts of data and also potentially integrate with other technologies like artificial intelligence. The gathered data with IoT can be used to analyze by AI that can offer insights. The insights can be used to identify the patterns and trends. It can also give proper ideas or predictive analytics for patient care. For example, by identifying patients’ lifestyles and routines, it is possible to predict the future possible disease chances.
Also Read: Custom Kiosk Software Development Solutions For Healthcare Industry
Challenges with IoT Driven Patient Tracking System
We have seen a lot of benefits of IoT-driven patient tracking systems for patient care but there can be a few potential challenges too. Here are a few challenges mentioned below.
- Network issues can be a major challenge as IoT technology cannot work without the internet. Many regions lack internet or proper internet connection, and cannot take advantage of IoT-driven patient care systems.
- Training and education of healthcare providers are the issues that many healthcare organizations face. It takes a lot of time to train the employees which can result in delays for other operations too.
- IoT deals with vast amounts of data and this can be an issue sometimes. Data overloading can be an issue that results in a crash of the whole system.
Also Read: Trends In Care Management Solutions for Future Healthcare
Final Words
IoT-driven patient care systems for patient condition monitoring have the potential to evolve the healthcare industry in many ways. There are many benefits of a driven patient care system such as real-time monitoring, improved patient safety, enhanced operational efficiency, and better patient outcomes we have mentioned earlier. By offering better monitoring ways, organizations can provide a more personalized experience to the patient.
There could be some challenges too while implementing an IoT-driven patient care system as the cost of implementation. Training, connectivity, data overloading, etc can be tackled with advancement. Overall, IoT-driven patient care systems will become more and more important to create a healthcare environment that is more effective, responsive, and patient-centered.
