Mobility has become mainstream: over 6 billion objects connected to the Internet this year and are expected to hit 50 billion by the year 2020.
The world’s largest conference dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT) kicks off this month in Silicon Valley for the third year running, and the conversation is no longer focused just on FitBits and talking cars.
“As new industries have embraced the IoT, the depth and breadth of our topics and speakers have more than doubled since last year.
Whether we’re talking about making payments through your car, or healthcare sensors that will literally save lives, the IoT is on its way to affecting the quality of life for almost every person on the planet,” said Gavin Whitechurch, Founder of Internet of Things World.
He’s right. Nearly everyone will be touched by IoT, and now, more than ever, faulty cybersecurity could unleash colossal threats. The importance of a nurturing, secure infrastructure will only grow as IoT roots deeper into the framework of healthcare information technology.
This spring, MIT debuted its first online course on the Internet of Things. Twelve faculty members will lead the course and help steer the conversation around consideration of the possibilities and ramifications of IoT, taking into account how crucial this education is for engineering, computer science, telecommunication, and healthcare industries.
“Because the Internet of Things has the potential to awaken 99 percent of the devices around us, it’s more important than ever for educational institutions and organizations to remain on the cutting edge of this evolution,” Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Daniela Rus explained.
Just as academia bolsters for the future, the healthcare world has sprung into adaptation mode.
A Tale of Two IoTs: Internet of [Healthcare] Things Simply Isn’t IoT
The uptick in use of wearable sensors, networked devices, and home monitoring systems, each collecting medical information and sometimes treating patients, underscores the perils for healthcare providers if cybersecurity falls flat.
The nonprofit Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual HIMSS16 conference established how the Internet of Things is just so special when it comes to medical cybersecurity.
Speakers addressed how to apply risk models to device classifications in order to clarify threat levels, automated security management—especially with high numbers of connected devices—and inventory management options against existing technologies along with solid implementation plans.
As HIMSS16 speaker Senior Director of IT at Ascension Information Services Eric Miller put it “Vision is imperative to progress, but just as important as vision is the ability to make big ideas practical. The challenge is on how we make the vision a reality without reducing it. Explore our vision of the Internet of Healthcare Things and the plan to make it a practical reality today without reducing it (hint: efficiency and security are the key).”
Every day, patients and providers count on the connective network of systems and products reliant on the IoT. The pros often outweigh the cons when it comes to benefits of capturing health data on mobile medical applications and wearables. Hospitals can now track locations of medical devices, personnel, patients, and more through IoT.
A physician with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Medical Device Interoperability Program, Julian Goldman explained, “We’re looking at ways we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare. Unfortunately, preventable medical errors are all too common in hospitals today. In the U.S. alone the statistics are that around 200,000 to 400,000 per year die in hospitals due to preventable medical errors.”
“As we think about the complex system of the hospital environment with all the medical devices, information that has to be shared, and the increasing complexity of healthcare delivery, there clearly are opportunities to improve the quality and safety of healthcare.”
Where movement, storage, and administration of medications can improve healthcare workflow systems on one end, the Internet of Healthcare Things can also improve patient experiences, much like retail customer service. In the place of flash sales and speed returns, this could entail less readmissions, overall improved health routines, and upgraded access to health information.
Patients are already used to the idea of looking to social media for discovering their next physician. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is considered to be a traditional tool in understanding patients’ perception of healthcare, however to better understand the patient experience, feedback from Yelp has proved more informative and is ranked 33rd in most visited websites in the United States, with 142 million unique monthly visitors.
Health Affairs states that Yelp is now the most widely used commercial website for hospital ratings in the country and, overall, 72 percent of U.S. Internet users sought out online health information in 2012, while 42 percent seek health-related reviews on social media.