If you know the meaning of IoT, you probably acknowledge it is a fascinating area. It brings a lot of potential to connect any kind of device with the internet, and to provide useful information to people. Now, there are new applications related to healthcare, in particular, IoT medical devices. What are IoT medical devices? They are pieces of hardware specifically designed to monitor the health of patients or to assist them in certain medical conditions.
A medical IoT device is not only used by doctors (who monitor the patients from the hospital), but it is also used by the patients, because they need to constantly monitor their vitals to maintain health during the day.
This monitoring may seem invasive for the patients, however, that’s why IoT medical devices are used only when it is needed, this way the healthcare providers or physicians can make decisions (medicine and treatment related) that guarantee the safety of the patient.
Benefits of IoT medical devices
The Internet of Things medical devices are in high demand nowadays, they belong to an area called IoT ehealth. Let’s see some benefits of IoT medical devices to give you an idea of its potential:
- These devices save energy and time for patients, since they can schedule their appointments from their phone, and avoid going to the hospital or calling the doctor.
- Constant monitoring of different vitals such as glucose levels, sleep patterns, heart-rate, oxygen levels, depression, among others.
- Improvement of medical treatment, since the doctor can monitor the progress of the patients and suggest better solutions.
- The patients become more aware of their health and improve their healthy habits.
- Real time data collection from the patient’s health conditions.
- Better assistance for patients with chronic diseases.
According to Forbes, “continuous monitoring via sensors and IoT could improve care delivery and quality of life for diabetic patients. This is crucial to avoid deterioration of patient health, which could impact the patient’s eyes, internal organs, nerves and other parts of the body.”
IoT medical devices market
People may think that the market of IoT medical devices is already saturated, but that’s not true, according to Insider intelligence, “the global internet of medical things (IoMT) market is expected to reach $187.60 billion by 2028, more than four times its worth in 2020 at $41.17 billion.”
Medical Internet of Things presents challenges in terms of innovation and competitiveness, but it doesn’t mean there is no space for new companies to break into the market and present new solutions to assist doctors and patients in their health monitoring.
At DeepSea Developments we have done medical prototyping (building Pill dispensers and some devices for PTSD monitoring), since it is one of the services we provide among our functions as IoT product development consultants. We suggest you read more about the following articles to understand more about IoT medical devices:
