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  • 3 min read

Make healthcare more intelligent by putting IoT into action

The healthcare industry is poised for massive transformation. With an aging population, chronic diseases, and increased regulations, healthcare costs continue to balloon—along with patient and provider expectations for better outcomes.

The healthcare industry is poised for massive transformation. With an aging population, chronic diseases, and increased regulations, healthcare costs continue to balloon—along with patient and provider expectations for better outcomes.

Intelligent healthcare, including IoT technology, is a key way to address these critical challenges. Intelligent, connected solutions are lowering costs, increasing patient care and health, and improving clinician and patient satisfaction. The opportunity is immense, with the potential IoT healthcare market projected at $158 billion by 2022.1

Below I will share how IoT solutions can drive revenue and transform the healthcare industry. For even more information and to connect with other partners, I highly encourage you to attend the IoT in Action event in Orlando on February 11, 2019.

The intelligent health opportunity

Intelligent health solutions can solve any number of issues. Below, I’ve called out some key areas where we see partner IoT solutions making a difference.

  1. Patient engagement: Intelligent cloud solutions that give patients more control of their health can help strengthen relationships with their providers, reduce re-admissions, and improve outcomes.
  2. Secure communications: Solutions that empower care teams to efficiently coordinate and easily share patient insights help to deliver improved patient-centric care while supporting secure, compliant, and timely communications.
  3. Operational efficiency: Solutions that reduce operational costs and improve outcomes by identifying patterns and trends, connecting data systems, and remotely monitoring critical systems improve healthcare delivery.
  4. Precision care: Giving healthcare providers the ability to tailor treatments with genomics and remotely monitor patients enables more personalized care and better compliance.

A secure platform for data access and communications

With increasingly stringent privacy and security regulations, IoT solutions must ensure data confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility while meeting regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR. Azure Sphere is an intelligent, trusted, and secure platform, upon which connected solutions that engage patients and empower care teams can be built. It provides an Azure Security and Compliance Blueprint to provide a secure, end-to-end foundation for organizations to deal with sensitive, regulated data and helps to ensure a HIPAA- and HITRUST-ready environment.

A hospital in Missouri built their own IoT solution that had to go through an approval process to ensure everything was operating properly in the highly regulated healthcare field. They needed a more proactive way to remotely monitor babies born with congenital heart disease. They created a solution that collects vital signs such as heartrate, weight, and oxygen saturation. Healthcare providers can see the data within two minutes of its being collected and get alerts if there are issues, enabling them to provide proactive care in a secure way.

Intelligent health plays a key role in life sciences

The pharmaceutical industry faces its own pressures, such as reduced payments, shifting regulations, and increased innovation costs. It’s never been more critical to find ways to increase operational efficiencies and deliver better results at a lower cost.

Counterfeit drugs and product integrity are among the major issues plaguing the industry, resulting in not only lost income and productivity but also negative health impacts. But IoT-enabled solutions like Titan Secure from Wipro are helping to solve these challenges. Titan Secure ensures end-to-end integrity across the pharmaceutical supply chain by providing real-time shipment visibility, data streams, and alerts around the following key areas:

  1. Temperature, humidity, vibration, and shock
  2. Environmental excursion and tampering
  3. Geo spatial location and documents in blockchain

Receive greater insights around the benefits of utilizing IoT when you register for the life sciences healthcare webinar on February 20, 2019.

Register for the Orlando IoT in Action event

If you’re planning to attend HIMSS, you’ll definitely want to register for IoT in Action in Orlando on February 11, 2019, where you’ll discover how IoT and intelligent solutions are transforming the healthcare industry. IoT in Action is a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and build connections in the rich Microsoft customer and partner ecosystem.

If you can’t attend the in-person event, take advantage of the IoT in Action webinar, Health efficiencies with IoT – Healthy outcomes for patients on February 20, 2019. Together, we’ll explore how IoT is helping the healthcare industry streamline and improve communications, medical supply transport, and regulation compliance.

 

1Markets and Markets, “IoT Healthcare Market by Component,” available at: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/iot-healthcare-market-160082804.html (accessed January 8, 2019)