How IoT Can Significanlty Improve Healthcare in the Context of Smart City
Similarly, evaluating component-level wear
and tear patterns (for instance, only one
bush of motorized platform getting
exhausted in an MRI machine rather than
both, requires part swapping) will help
control costs and mean time between
repairs (MTBR).
Evaluating medical
diagnostic equipment handling and usage
patterns (average exam time per patient and
body region, MTB patient exams, average
study prep time), comparing against
standard operating procedures and
providing guidance to operators/users, will
help additionally cut non-usage time and
improve utilization for hospitals. For the
equipment provider, it will enhance product
life cycle and hence profitability
3. Automated Documentation/Connected
medical devices
As mentioned above, there is a tremendous
shortage of medical professional (physicians
and nursing personal) across the globe. Even
for the ones available, efficiency goes down
due to complex compliance related to
patient health data documentation.
In the last decade, the data capture process
has maturated from paper-based patient
reported outcome (PRO) to electronic PRO
(ePRO). But the process still involves manual
activities such as data entry by patient into
the ePRO. Further downstream, medical
professionals have to scan it and then enter
it into the electronic medical record (EMR)
system. This is still a complex and time-
consuming process from the perspective of
physicians.
According to a leading research agency, the
global medical equipment maintenance
market (remote monitoring & maintenance)
is expected to reach USD 2.24 billion by 2020
from USD 1 billion in 2015, at a CAGR of
16.7%. 12 These services can create
significant savings for hospitals by
preventing equipment downtime and hence
improving utilization rates. Some vendors
like Olympus Medical and Siemens
Healthcare have been offering related
service (i.e., remote failure diagnosis, Over
the Air updates services). They are further
maturing with introduction of deep
analytical models and easing out on cloud
specific restrictions.
12
In a clinical trials scenario, integration
between ePRO and cloud-based EMR
systems enables automatic and secure
import of clinical data from the ePRO directly
into the electronic data capture system. For
other scenarios, connected medical devices
at investigational sites record patient clinical
data directly into an electronic application,
removing paper from the current standard
electronic data capture model and making
the process user friendly and highly
automated. This will enable better adoption
rates for EMR systems among care givers
universally, improving the score on the
Smart City health care parameter. 13 Realizing
the benefits of this ecosystem, players
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/medical-equipment-maintenance-market-69695102.html
13
http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/content/tags/ehr/physician-outcry-ehr-functionality-cost-will-shake-
health-informa?page=full
20
June 2016