NEF6101 Research Thesis 1: Internet of Things in Healthcare

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NEF6101 Research Thesis 1
Research Proposal
<Research Title>
by
<student name>
Supervisor:
<supervisor name>
<April 2019>

Abstract
The technology of the internet of things provides the emergent way through which the
researchers can design effective technologies in the health care system. IoT in the healthcare
system has the potential for alleviation of the strain which is caused by the population aging
and increase in the amount of chronic illness. The common challenges faced in healthcare by
using the IoT are security, wearability and the operations with the low power. IoT provides
the number of applications in the technologies, economic level and the aspects related to the
social concept. This report presents the challenges and methodology that can be faced in
healthcare centers by using the internet of things aspects. The designed structure used in the
healthcare centers by using the IoT can provide the various medical services which include
the sensors and web designed structures which helps in communication with the networks
and the patient record. The information collected for the analyzing and predict the chronic
disorders and the many other diseases like the heart attacks on the primary stages. It uses
several techniques or the methods which give chance to the quick decision-making process.
This research includes the research questions through which the problems statement can be
clear out along with the used methodologies like
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Table of Contents
Abstract....................................................................................................................................................................ii
1. Introduction and Background..............................................................................................................................1
2. Research Aims and Questions..............................................................................................................................2
3. Preliminary Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
4. Proposed Methodology........................................................................................................................................6
5. Research Timeline................................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................................9
References..............................................................................................................................................................11
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List of Figures
Figure 1 Structure.....................................................................................................................................................6
Figure 2 Implementation..........................................................................................................................................7
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List of Tables
Table 1 Research timeline........................................................................................................................................8
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1. Introduction and Background
The IoT or the internet of the things is the technology which connects the multiple networks and
the systems through which the systems can establish communication with each other. The
advancement in many technologies has derived the many sources to make changes in daily life
concepts. IoT in healthcare is generating the best medical facilities to the doctors as well as the
patient. This is the interconnection of the several devices including the sensors, apps or the
network connectivity which helps in the collection or exchanging the multiple data at a time. In the
previous time, if there will be an emergency in the ICUs, the doctor is not getting alert at a specific
time and the records of the patient data are lost many of the times. The implementation of the IoT
in the healthcare changes this issue. It creates the devices with the sensors which detect the point
of emergency in 24 hours.
This will be used in maintaining the records of the patient with their status. This providing the full
monitoring of the patient and also inform their family members on the smartphones about their
health status. When the healthcare centers did not use the benefit of the IoT, at that time the
tracking or the monitoring of the patient health can be conducted in more time. But the
development of the IoT changes these challenges and provides the proper feedback of the patient
health. Now, there are many devices like the watches and smartphones which shows all the
parameters related to the health constantly. This can also show the accidental location of the
individual through which the patient can take the response of the public or health center in quick
time.
This report defines the concept of the challenges of IoT in the health care center along with its
uses. It includes the research aims along with the research questions. It also defines the literature
review which shows the different-different concepts. The used methodology can define the several
factors which show that how the IoT implement in the healthcare center. There are some
challenges of the IoT which can be faced in the healthcare centers along with the research
timescale.
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2. Research Aims and Questions
The main of this research is to recognize the challenges of the IoT in health care. it evaluates the
issues that can be faced by the IoT along with recognizing the questions or the methodology with
proper reviews. This research provides the proper description that how IoT affects the health care
centers as well as the doctors or patient.
There are some questions related to the aim are defined as:
Question 1: What is the privacy or security concerns related to the IoT in healthcare?
Question 2: How the patient journey can be improving from tightening budget?
Question 3: What are the principles of IoT in healthcare?
Question 4: Which factors affect the development of IoT in the healthcare system?
Question 5: What are the existing challenges of IoT in healthcare?
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3. Preliminary Literature Review
According to author (Devendran, Archana and Suseela, 2018), the industry of healthcare has a
watchful eye on the patients, especially on their budgets because as it is considered as the most
important concepts and have the improved and effective quality of several infrastructures which
helps in providing the perfect environment to the patients as well as the doctors. He explained that
IoT has taken the effective changes in the technology but somehow due to the involvement of the
best technologies, the budget for the patient care can be high due to which now the IoT
development derives many benefits for this issue. The status of the patient can be read out
successfully by collecting all the information based on the cloud. The author explains that the IoT
provides the best journey of the patient by providing the proper control or set proper
communication with their families and it also provides help of transport services. It provides the
proper attention of the doctors or the patient due to the presence of sensors.
During this research, the author (Mittelstadt, B. 2017), described that IoT in health care provides
the way through which patient care can be conducted efficiently. the author describes the number
of principles like:
 Generate facilities for actions based on public health and engagement of user: this
technology is highly valuable in the medical concept. This principle states that the interest
of the individual is also important along with their health. In healthcare where IoT exists,
the cost is not taken as important form the patients Care.
 Beneficence or the non-maleficence: this principle stated that this technology is designed
for maintaining the user or patient safety. The device based on this technology are reliable
or secure, it is commonly used to test the functionality for the long-term assurance. The
devices based on this technology can provide alerts to medical professionals about patient
health.
 Respect to autonomy ad avoid the negative behavior of user: It provides the proper
feedback on the activities depends on the health of the patients. It stated that the user
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emotional attachment does not affect the device that's the main reason the facilities are
provided manually which is necessary for the patients.
 Respect individual privacy: The designing of the devices based on IoT in the health center
depends on the privacy or protection concept. The prevention of the private information of
the patients can be considered as the key factor which helps in generating the regulation or
control on behavioral aspects. Respect for privacy can be conduct from the initial basis.
The protection demands much more attention due to the reason because the protection of
the privacy information demands to patient care.
 Respect the privacy of group: This technology is used in the healthcare to providing the
supports to the individuals or the patients for providing the safety measures. Privacy is
considered as the approach through which the information of the patient and the group can
be prevented from going in the third-party hand. Through this technology, the
anonymization and the re-identification of the information can be prevented. The harms of
the group details can be prevented by checking the proper profiles of the patient. It gets
possible that the privacy of group-level can be conceived and through which the patient can
easily able to detect the proper issue and no other person can change the details or the
reports.
 Design diversity: IoT based devices in health care can be designed to maintain the group
level information up-to-the privacy level. The group of the users is,y be varying to decrease
the functionality control which helps the patient to maintain the privacy. Sometimes, the
user group can be ignored because to maintain the demands of access or to provide equality
through which the user did not ignore the sake based on commercial efficiency. This
principle can be sued to reporting the patient care by the other family members and various
policies or the features of this technology can be used to maintain the system.
According to the author (Eken and Eken, 2018), the IoT can facility the many advantages but it
also affects with some sort of threats. The threats are described as:
1. Energy optimization: the devices based on the IoT for the health care centers are designed
on by using the sensors. These sensors are used to analyses the health data of the patient in
an easy manner. the energy-consuming issue can be considered as the most important issue
which can be faced by the wearable devices based on IoT. This is because all the wearable
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devices are existing in very small size and the collection of the patient or the human data is
high which consumes a high amount of the energy.
2. Privacy: the data which is taken from the IoT based devices are in the mechanisms of the
remote access. That's why the privacy factor can affect patient data. Data can be collected
by the use of the sensors which conduct the activities of the patient or the user.
3. Denial of service attacks: IoT devices mainly used to collecting or communicate the data.
There are some sorts of the attacks which can be conducted as the denial of service attack.
The devices based on this concept has very low capabilities to store the data for high time.
During this research, the author (Malunjkar, 2019), described that there are many factors which
affect the proper development of the IoT in the health care centers. There are mainly three factors
which are described as:
1. The adoption of the smart and wearable devices is increased: there are number of devices
present in the current scenario like the phablets and the tablets or the wearable devices like
the smart bands and the smart clothes, etc. these technologies are used to describe the
collection of the health data of the patients and the individuals. There is a number of the
devices which can attract a large number of people because of having the extra capabilities
which benefit the patients in finding their chronical illness.
2. There is the high demand of the workforce optimization, all by using the records of
electronic health: the demand of the workforce is considered as the most important key for
the health care centers. IoT needs the help which brings the direction for the disorder of the
hospital facilities and there is no establishment of the communication between the patient
and the professional of hospitals.
3. Healthcare demand in the remote locations: the under the developed area where the health
facilities are negligible, demands the more healthcare facilities. The IoT helps in
maintaining the proper communication between the patients and the doctor's bit these areas
are not fulfilling with the proper areas where the establishment of this type of devices take
place. The IoT based devices for health can be considered as the expansion in these areas
which only get possible if the people of that area can understand the desireless of this
technology. The proper communication and the telemedicine help in providing help to the
patients and reduce down the prevalence of many diseases.
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4. Proposed Methodology
In this research report, the proposed methodology is described as the automatic system which can
be sued to monitors the body temperature of the patient along with evaluating the heart rate and
the body movements or the blood pressure. In this, the existing system can be predicted that if the
patient is suffered from any type of chronic diseases which uses the several parameters and the
symptoms which can be explained by the system. The figure describes the how will the
information will be retrieved for patient health.
In this the first level, the unprocessed data which was extracted from the IoT devices and stored in
the server. These all devices include the sensors like the temperature sensors and the vibration
sensor, etc.,
In level second, the result is generated with the relevant information which can be filtered out
according to categorize each one. This provides the proper information of the patient health at real-
time. This provides helps in making the system smart.
Figure 1 Structure
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