How is IoMT impacting healthcare?

IoMT significantly influences the healthcare industry in several environments, including in-home, on-body, in the community, and in-hospital settings:

In-Hospital IoMT

Hospitals leverage IoMT to monitor the quality and availability of medical assets over time. It also helps track the movement of personnel and patients within the facility. Using IoMT sensors and tracking systems, hospital administrators can gain a comprehensive view of operations and interactions within the premises.

In-Home IoMT

This allows individuals to send medical data from their homes to healthcare providers or hospitals. Remote patient monitoring (RPM), for instance, involves transmitting health metrics like blood pressure or oxygen levels from a patient’s home to their hospital, allowing doctors to review these metrics remotely. This technology can decrease hospital readmissions by identifying potential issues early.

Telehealth services complement in-home IoMT by enabling patients to consult with their doctors remotely for minor issues, further reducing the need for in-person visits.

Additionally, personal emergency response systems (PERS) use IoMT to detect emergencies like falls or heart attacks and automatically call for help. These systems offer peace of mind to at-risk individuals, such as the elderly, who prefer living independently at home.

On-Body IoMT

This category includes wearable medical devices that connect to remote monitoring systems, enabling continuous health tracking outside the home. Consumer wearables, like the Apple Watch, can monitor vital signs and alert users to potential health issues, such as irregular heart rhythms.

Clinical-grade wearables provide more specialized monitoring, such as glucose sensors for diabetic patients, which can send real-time data to healthcare providers for prompt and precise management.

Community IoMT

Community-wide IoMT deployment involves using medical technology across a larger geographic area. This includes mobility services that track patients in transit and emergency response systems that help paramedics monitor patient health metrics in real-time.

Community IoMT also includes point-of-care devices used in non-traditional settings like field hospitals and medical kiosks dispensing medicines in areas with limited healthcare infrastructure.

In logistics, IoMT devices monitor the conditions of healthcare goods during transport, such as temperature and pressure, to ensure that the quality of sensitive medical supplies is maintained throughout their journey.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) encompasses a network of internet-connected medical devices, hardware infrastructure, and software applications that integrate with healthcare information technology systems. Often called healthcare IoT, IoMT enables wireless and remote devices to communicate securely over the Internet, facilitating the swift and flexible analysis of medical data.

IoMT has made a significant and lasting impact on the healthcare sector. Market analysts in healthcare technology predict that by 2030, the IoMT market could be valued at $861.3 billion.

The broader concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) includes all internet-connected devices, such as internet-connected factory equipment, biometric cybersecurity scanners, and autonomous farming equipment. However, IoMT is specifically tailored for healthcare and medical applications. Due to the sensitive nature and stringent regulations surrounding healthcare data, IoMT necessitates a more robust security infrastructure compared to other IoT applications.