Healthiness Monitoring using IoT Solutions

RUNNING HEAD: HEALTHINESS MONITORING USING IOT SOLUTIONS
Healthiness Monitoring using IoT Solutions
Topic: Interoperability of IoT Systems
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Word Count: 2095
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Introduction
A. Motivation
The concept of Internet of Things, is network-based physical device’s combination to
support various functions and possible telemetry. In medical technology, IoT-based devices,
such as implants, wearables, home monitoring systems, sensors and other applications, have
been observed to leave a potentiality on connecting providers and their patients, while
coupling with the AI techniques for various innovations (Catarinucci et al., 2015). Nowadays,
sensors have replaced the extra staff, for maintenance, measurement and other features.
However, due to the complexity of the human health monitoring systems, problems of
security and privacy to such systems are required to be resolved, as they belong to extremely
sensitive asset (Bhatt, Dey & Ashour, 2017). Since, the amount (stats) of cardiovascular-
related deaths are very high, as stated by WHO (refer to Appendix), thus electrocardiograph
is selected as the major area of the whole health monitoring system. Also, prophylaxis’s two
options are also suggested for reducing the catastrophic consequences. Currently, few designs
and prototypes record and process the heart’s electrical activity, through wearables. Multiple
hardware and software are used in the solutions. Accordingly, proposed system’s by
(Amendola et al., 2014) and (Gope & Hwang, 2016) are analysed, as they used wealthy
equipment, however lacked appropriate technical specifications. Thus, a need of a new
system for analysing and monitoring the human health’s state is demanded from the IoT and
cloud technologies.
B. Structure of the Paper
Thus, the following study comprises of sections which, firstly discuss the existing
projects and researches conducted by the former researchers, on the same topic. Secondly, a
case study analysis is provided on the ‘IoT in Healthcare solutions’ which demonstrates the
benefits, challenges and other features, which were analysed after deep study on the subject.
Also, a recommendable system is introduced which can improve the current state of the
health monitoring projects. The paper finally concludes with the overall knowledge gained
from the work, in a brief.
Literature Review
Currently, various solutions are presented with respect to the monitoring procedures
of a person’s condition. Based on the works by Amendola et al. (2014), a platform of

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MySignals, has developed eHealth applications for the respective patients, using the medical
devices. The respective product has implementation of both software and hardware solutions.
Benefits of the solution is observed as by flexibility features, like connection ability under 20
dissimilar sensors, access and implementation of the project to the market and, also the API
and cloud services, responsive availability. However, major disadvantages lie on the costing
(yearly tariff plans near to 300 Euros for a single solution; also, hardware costs are 2,000
Euros), and also absence of appropriate device security and certification.
“ECG dongle” is another project, developed by Gelogo, Hwang & Kim (2015). The
provided solution comprises of a cardiograph device, which is shaped as a USB dongle, along
with Android application of the project and extensive cloud storage. Advantages are observed
to be the portability of the device and the cheaper rate of costing (about 65 USD/device).
Quantitative data analysis have proven that patients and their family members, were
moreover interested in the following project, due to its efficiency and affordable rate.
However, problems were calculated as disadvantages of the system, as it moreover, depended
on an external device, and also, the whole research was left in in uncompleted state. Thus,
determination of corrective diagnosis results, in the preliminary state is impossible to be
considered and thus, doctor’s consultancy is necessitated. Also, there is a high probability of
extensive technical errors.
Farahani et al. (2018) has provided a system, which used a costly and primitive
equipment-based system. The system monitors the patient’s health, under specific
calculations, operated by the MATLAB software’s usage. The whole project is difficult to be
initiated by an amateur or, an organization, since the MATLAB is a premium software (and
costs a lot of money), which needs particular amount of funding. Researchers, only stopped
the project in the prototype stage, and did not go any further.
Kodali, Swamy & Lakshmi (2015) developed a software (named “Health-Op”) which
had the same functionalities of monitoring patient’s health, and tracking the heart rate, pulse
rate, high & low pressure, and other features. However, it was also an expensive software,
where advanced wireless technology’s usage was also lacking, in a major way. Also, the
usage of cloud technologies were absent. Major drawback was due to the specificity of ‘one
device usage only’ design, which restricted its overall flexibility, as well.

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Case Study Analysis
The use of IoT in healthcare has been significantly visible since a long time, while use
case lists are continuously growing. Targetable benefits of IoT in healthcare, across the range
of use cases, can be described as:
 Greater engagement of patients: With the deployment of IoT systems, patience feel
as a part of playing an active characteristic during their healthcare journey. The
respective devices are not only limited to remote monitoring usage and factors
(portability, light, simple, etc.); additionally, the interference of patient accessed data,
has changed as well. Use of applications and software programs are supported by the
patients, for monitoring their own health information, impact and progress- under the
well-being of the healthcare projects.
 Improved patient outcome: Caretakers, nurses and other secondary staffs can access
the patient’s information (real-time), to enable them for better decision making, and
outcome deliverance. On an execution of a real-time diagnosis based on real-time
evidence, it benefits the whole involved officials, directly. Also, remote monitoring of
patients can help patients to decrease the amounts of doctor visit, re-admissions and
hospital stays.
 Low errors: During the automatic collection and transmission of data, under the
automated workflows, the range of errors are contrasted to the manual reporting and
collection systems. The rates of errors are observed to be low.
 Enhancement of Patient’s experience: Patients are the core of healthcare, thus the
requirements of the patients are the utmost priority. Therefore, IoT improves patient’s
experience through the timed diagnosis and intervention, proactive treatments, better
outcomes, and greater outcome results of treatment.
According to the survey data by Kulkarni & Sathe (2014), total count of remotely monitored
patients, using interconnected devices, has increased by 47% to 7.3 million in 2016, while a
compound annual growth of more than 49% is predicted by 2021. However, the growth is
unreliable, if the underlying challenges are not properly maintained.
After the analysis of the above described researches (in the Literature Review) mechanism,
advantages and disadvantages, it can be stated that the projects were incomplete and
unsuccessful with respect to the deployment of IoT based device in the Healthcare field. Most