IoT in Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities

This report discusses the use of IoT in healthcare domain for monitoring health and providing notifications during medical emergencies. It highlights the challenges faced by IoT in healthcare such as lack of electronic health care integration system, security threats, multiple device integration, inferring results from immense data, constant changes in hardware and connectivity, and interoperability challenges.

IoT IN HEALTH CARE DOMAIN

ABSTRACT – IoT or Internet of Things generally refers to the ever growing network consisting of physical objects
which featured with an IP address for connecting with the internet. Along with this IoT also refers to the
communication, which generally occurs between all this objects and other devices or systems, which are internet
enabled. IoT is used in various domains and one such domain is the healthcare domain. This is used for various
purposes in the healthcare domain like monitoring of health, notification during any kind of medical emergency and
many more.
1. INTRODUCTION (15 MARKS)
IoT is an emerging an emerging technology and has various
advantages as well as disadvantages. Various domains have
already started the use of IoT. One such domain is the
healthcare domain. IoT is generally used in healthcare domain
for monitoring the health remotely and provide notifications
whenever there is an emergency [9]. The IoT devices used in
healthcare for the purpose of monitoring the health might
range from simple devices like blood monitoring devices or
heart rate monitors to highly advanced monitoring devices
which are implanted like the pacemakers, Fitbit electronic
wrist bands or advanced hearing aids. However, along with
the advantages there are various challenges that are faced by
the IoT in the field of healthcare [1].
2. PROBLEMS FACED BY IOT
2.1 Lack of Electronic Health Care integration System
Data which are collected from the IoT devices maignt
include certain things like the vital sign’s of the patient,
physical activities or glucose level while the patien is present
at home and many more dose not travel typically to the
electronic health record system [3]. It has also been seen that
is most cases the data is not centralized and can be easily
availale for the providers, which is initially responsible for
limiting the information value as the adat is not presented to
the provider always in context to the clinics. Along with this
there exists certain electronic health recording systems where
the patient is allowed to import the data directly into their
record despite of this there still exists some limitations for few
of the dominant EHR players [7]. Initially, this leaves many of
the providers to remain uncertain about the way in which the
information (outside their record system) is to be handled.
2.2 Security threats
Security threats is a primary concern for the regulatory
bodies present at the healthcare industry. The concern mainly
includes the security of the privacy of the personal healthcare
information, which are stored and conveyed by making use of
the connected devices [2]. Many of the organizations
associated with the healthcare makes sure that the soring of
the sensitive data is done in a secure and encrypted manner.
Along with they are also not having any type of control over
the safety and the security for the data access points, which
are used for the purpose of transmission of the data. Initially
this acts as the significant threat, which increases gradually
depending on the number of devices, which gets connected
network [1].
2.3 Multiple device integration
Integration of multiple devices stands out to be an obstacle
in the path of success of IoT in healthcare. Most of the devices
that are present in the hospitals along with the health devices
need to be connected to the network for collecting data from
the patients [3]. The most prominent challenge that exists is
today’s world is that the manufactures of IoT devices for
healthcare have not agreed upon any set of protocols or
standards. Therefore, whenever multiple number of mobile
devices is connected to the network for collecting the data
then it becomes a very complicated process of grouping all the
information collected. This is because the mobile devices are
having different protocols [5]. Due to lack of homogeneity
between the medical devices or the IoT devices used for
medical process reduces the chances of success while
implementation of the IoT technology in healthcare domain.
2.4 Inferring results from immense data
Different and numerous types of complexities are attached
with the process of aggregation and collection of data. Despite
of the fact that combined results helps in deriving of new
conclusions by inferring the records of the patient, the results
which comes up can be very much challenging and might not
have been checked by any data expert or night not have
undergone any type of analytic program so as to get refined
[4]. Along with this, the identification of valuable as well as
actionable data is one of the critical factor and this is because
medical specialists and physicians find it very difficult to
reach the conclusion regarding the growth of the data. There is
lack of quality due to increased amount of data in the process
of decision-making [6]. Besides this, the concern is becoming
much bigger due to the involvement of new devices, which is
connected to the network that is associated with continuous
collection of the data along with the generation of big data as
well.
2.5 Constant changes in the Hardware and Connectivity
More than one device is required by the patients for the
collection of data that the provider needs. For this purpose,
there might exist a need of more than one sensors and in most
cases, it has been seen that this sensors is used along with a
hub where the data gets pushed [8]. These pubs are designed
for processing the information. It has also been seen that these
hubs are not compatible with the different types of sensors,
which are available, and lacks in common hardware or
wireless connectivity. This will initially lead the patients to
have an extensive hardware with them, which would be
overwhelming as well as costly.
2.6 Interoperability challenges
The patients prefer collection of different sets of data by
making use of different types of medical devices. The usage
of such medical devices depends on the purpose of each

device or according to the instructions of the physicians. In
many cases, it has been seen that the data, which is captured
by the IoT device, stays within the boundaries of each system
and the IoT vendors [8]. This collected information is not
visible to any other systems. However, it is unfortunate that
lack of wider adaptation of the adequate interoperability has
led to the lock down of the data from different IoT devices in
each individual system. This initially leads to the loss of
potential values for the rest of the team associated with
patients care.
3. FORMAT OF THE REPORT
This report consists of the two sections and the format of
the report is provided below:
1. Introduction: This portion of the report provides an
general overview of the IoT technology and how it
has effected the healthcare industry.
2. Problems faced by IoT: This section of the report
discusses about the various problems that is faced by
the IoT in the field of healthcare. Some of the major
challenges have been discussed in this portion of the
report.
References:
[1] Fernandez, F., & Pallis, G. C. (2014, November). Opportunities and
challenges of the Internet of Things for healthcare: Systems engineering
perspective. In Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare
(Mobihealth), 2014 EAI 4th International Conference on (pp. 263-266).
IEEE.
[2] Bhatt, C., Dey, N., & Ashour, A. S. (Eds.). (2017). Internet of things and
big data technologies for next generation healthcare.
[3] Laplante, P. A., & Laplante, N. (2016). The internet of things in
healthcare: Potential applications and challenges. IT Professional, 18(3),
2-4.
[4] Moosavi, S. R., Gia, T. N., Rahmani, A. M., Nigussie, E., Virtanen, S.,
Isoaho, J., & Tenhunen, H. (2015). SEA: a secure and efficient
authentication and authorization architecture for IoT-based healthcare
using smart gateways. Procedia Computer Science, 52, 452-459.
[5] Amendola, S., Lodato, R., Manzari, S., Occhiuzzi, C., & Marrocco, G.
(2014). RFID technology for IoT-based personal healthcare in smart
spaces. IEEE Internet of things journal, 1(2), 144-152.
[6] Hassanalieragh, M., Page, A., Soyata, T., Sharma, G., Aktas, M.,
Mateos, G., ... & Andreescu, S. (2015, June). Health monitoring and
management using Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensing with cloud-based
processing: Opportunities and challenges. In Services Computing (SCC),
2015 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 285-292). IEEE.
[7] Xu, B., Da Xu, L., Cai, H., Xie, C., Hu, J., & Bu, F. (2014). Ubiquitous
data accessing method in IoT-based information system for emergency
medical services. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 10(2),
1578-1586.
[8] Doukas, C., & Maglogiannis, I. (2012, July). Bringing IoT and cloud
computing towards pervasive healthcare. In Innovative Mobile and
Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS), 2012 Sixth
International Conference on (pp. 922-926). IEEE.
[9] Kulkarni, A., & Sathe, S. (2014). Healthcare applications of the Internet
of Things: A Review. International Journal of Computer Science and
Information Technologies, 5(5), 6229-6232.