How the internet of things is transforming health care
As the world heads into the age of the Internet of Things, every day devices are reporting data about virtually everything people do. This data helps companies market to consumers better. It helps manufacturers improve on their products. It helps homeowners to direct energy usage in their homes with complete control. It even helps modern medicine get to the bottom of their patients’ nagging health problems.
It is this last use of the Internet of Things that deserves closer examination. With the Internet of Things merging with our daily routine, even something as common as a refrigerator becomes helpful in alerting a doctor to what a patient has been doing to their body. Why keep a dietary journal, when your refrigerator will report to your doctor for you about what you have been eating? The technology to monitor such factors of a patient's overall health are already here. Algorithms operating on this type of data can even comb through the information and report honestly about how healthy a patient's lifestyle actually happens to be.
The Use of Wearables to Check Vital Signs
As the Internet of Things brings forth more intimate technology, it is becoming increasingly easier to probe and acquire telemetry about a patient round the clock. Wearable products designed to automatically gather data about a patient's vital signs are becoming cheaper to produce and can be worn anywhere a patient wants to go. From low cost heart monitors to devices that monitor a patient's obstructive apnea, wearable tech is making it possible for doctors to acquire a more complete view of what is really going on with a patient's health. It is a technological revolution that exposes how old fashioned medical practices are undoubtedly causing doctors to miss the big picture about their own patient's underlying health conditions. This is ultimately a discussion of how increased access to data could dramatically affect the accuracy of a diagnosis.
Mobile Apps Connect Patients With Preexisting Medical Resources
The Internet of Things leverages mobile app technology to create access to medical information on demand. Whether you want to review your own medical records or have a conversation with your doctor remotely, modern apps make these connections possible. Mobile apps can educate patients as to the latest scientific breakthroughs and understanding of various health conditions and also help patients track their own symptoms, which leads to a stronger diagnosis by doctors.
How Interconnected Health Devices Can Improve Patient Care
Interconnected health devices inevitably add multiple dimensions of information analysis to the monitoring capabilities of a patient's condition. This makes it possible to catch problems faster, earlier and more efficiently. Machines do not forget to check for factors that may easily slip a doctor or patient's mind. This makes a machine-based analysis of a patient's condition more thorough as new devices help to replace the need for human monitoring. It is inevitable that networked medical devices will ultimately provide doctors with the most likely diagnosis to help these same doctors approach treatment regiments with greater speed than in years past.
What Problems Could Arise From Digitized Medical Documents and Information?
One of the primary concerns about the Internet of Things being brought to the healthcare industry is the question of information security. As with any company being hacked and digital data being compromised, the healthcare community is really no exception to this central vulnerability. Where doctors specialize in medical techniques, hackers specialize in invading computerized systems. More devices reporting data across a network potentially opens up more opportunities to exploit such reporting avenues. Hackers specialize in knowing how to take advantage of such weaknesses in a digital system. For this reason, there is good reason to be concerned that patient data may be easier to compromise than one might imagine.
On the other hand, more devices reporting information along a network may be able to help catch hackers as well. Depending on how these systems are designed, it is possible that a hacker's taking advantage of what they believe are weaknesses within a medical system will help to expose a hacker to authorities more efficiently. Only time will be able to tell who will gain the upper hand in the ever evolving digital landscape.
As the Internet of Things pushes forward, it will continue to pervasively settle into our daily experiences. The electronic devices that we come to depend on exist to share data about users with any number of digital systems. How this data is being used, exploited and misused is not always clear even to experts. It may reach a point where it becomes impossible to function outside the sphere of this pervasive web of digital information transfer. It is a use of technology that begs the question if the benefits outweigh the potential dangers; however, for now, patients seem to be enjoying how the emerging Internet of Things intimately involves them in their own healthcare decisions.
[Image by Nicola via Flickr]