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How to use "Internet of Things" to improve health

Source: Time:2020-09-19 22:43:51 views:

How long did you sleep last night? Eight hours? Seven hours? Six hours? In today's society, lack of sleep, and lack of sleep will have an impact on the real world. Studies have found that sleeping for four or five hours a day for four consecutive nights can make people have the same decision-making ability as after drinking a glass of wine. This may not be an insurmountable obstacle to secular success. But letting it become the rule, not the exception, cannot be a recipe for prosperity and development of society.

Sleep problems can simultaneously reflect the possibilities and dangers of an interconnected society. The article also pointed out some ways to overcome these dangers. Let's face it, the interconnected society is one of the primary reasons for our lack of sleep. From social media to on-demand movies, our screens and the content they bring to us either make us sleepless for longer and longer, or drive us to do more things and travel more at an ever faster rate.

When we reduce sleep, we deprive us of many of the benefits of sleep, and these benefits have not been taken seriously until now. Whether lack of sleep is caused by diseases such as sleep apnea or caused by one's own causes, the immune system will not reach its optimal state. Sleep can indeed help us live longer. It is the guardian of the brain and can remove harmful residues accumulated throughout the day, such as amyloid plaques related to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

Monitor activity and sleep 24/7

So how can communication technology help us deal with this silent epidemic? First, provide tools to completely change our understanding of sleep. Sleep laboratories are expensive, scarce in number, and feel like homelessness. As a result, the data they generate is expensive, insufficient, and somewhat flawed. Participating in the test subjects and patients can take home wireless interconnected sleep monitoring equipment, which helps to improve the effectiveness of research and improve the quantity and quality of data for scientists.

Mobile health technology can help doctors obtain data records that last several days or weeks to accurately diagnose diseases, instead of conducting research on patients during a short physical examination (up to one night). With the new insights they gather, it is only a matter of time before launching new applications to encourage us to choose a healthier lifestyle.

Continuous monitoring using connected technology will have a similar impact on the various non-communicable diseases that plague our society, from diabetes to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. One billion people worldwide are affected by hypertension, and 17 million people die from cardiovascular disease every year. Continuous or long-term monitoring of patients can help bring new insights that will change our understanding of these and other diseases. Not only that, they may also provide a means of early diagnosis, and for patients already suffering from these diseases, it is also a convenient way to contact the doctor.

Let the medical and health industry develop healthily

Medical and health costs are high. According to the World Economic Forum, by 2030, the world will lose approximately US$30 trillion in treating the above-mentioned non-communicable diseases alone. Everywhere, the healthcare system is under tremendous pressure, both in terms of finance and capacity.

Connected healthcare equipment is a valuable toolkit that can increase the capacity of the global healthcare system. For example, collecting patient data before the patient goes to the general practitioner, which means that when the patient goes to the doctor, the doctor can discuss treatment options instead of trying to make a high-quality on-site diagnosis. The adoption of the electronic health record system can ensure that patient data is used intact and undamaged throughout the care process. When possible, interconnected outpatient monitoring can allow patients to leave the intensive care unit faster and return home earlier, while still benefiting from adequate monitoring.

Outside of the clinic, our aging society also creates problems that we have never encountered before. The possibility of sending older people to institutions where quality care is available has encountered cost barriers. In view of this situation and the common problems in nursing homes, assisted living solutions are becoming more and more common, allowing the elderly to stay at home and live independently for longer.

In addition to remote medical monitoring of the elderly, these solutions also make it easier for the elderly to understand the conditions at home, such as monitoring air quality and indoor and outdoor safety. Environmental assisted living solutions can also connect them with family members, caregivers, medical professionals, and emergency services. They also make economic sense: remote monitoring can reduce pension expenditures in rural areas by a quarter.

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Find the hypodermic needle in the haystack

This is not just patient monitoring. The hospital is a fast-paced environment, in which a few minutes are wasted to find misplaced equipment

It may have serious consequences. According to estimates by ABI Research, a hospital alone may spend hundreds of hours a month in finding lost equipment. Therefore, this time cannot be used to provide patients with high-quality medical services that may save lives. In addition, quickly and efficiently locating patients, visitors and medical staff can improve service quality and safety.

Many of these challenges can be overcome by deploying a real-time indoor positioning system. For example, using the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signal of a beacon or router network, a battery-powered tracker can continuously ping its location to the asset tracking system, making the management of people and equipment easier. Seamless indoor and outdoor positioning solutions that integrate satellite positioning functions can further expand its coverage, for example, to support emergency rescue services outside the hospital.

Solve the Achilles heel of trust

If the interconnected medical and health solutions have the Achilles' heel, it is the issues of security, privacy and confidentiality. Various connected medical devices from dialysis machines to pacemakers may be attacked by malicious hackers who may put patients at risk by controlling such devices. Some people may just interfere with the interconnected hospital management system. Although electronic medical records have been greatly improved, compared with traditional paper records, electronic medical records face many more undesirable factors. There are countless ways for criminals to use these data to obtain economic benefits. Concerns about privacy violations have triggered a high level of confidentiality.

Therefore, in order to promote the widespread acceptance of the connected healthcare industry, various related applications need to have a very high level of digital security. Regardless of whether the device is connected to the cloud via a short-range gateway or directly connected to the cloud via cellular communication, the application must be designed to run safely throughout its life cycle. In addition to highly robust data encryption, equipment also needs to be constantly updated to resist emerging threats, which are usually spread wirelessly and are subject to strict power restrictions. This requires a highly scalable, reliable and lightweight device management method.

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Correct communication type

Connected medical devices designed for the global market need to be able to operate in extremely diverse environments in order to easily connect to a large number of clinical, proprietary or national patient databases. Therefore, non-proprietary technologies (such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular communication), mature and highly interoperable communication protocols (such as TCP, UDP, and HTTPS), as well as MQTT, CoAP, LwM2M (designed for energy saving and resource-constrained) Designed for IoT devices), etc., may still be widespread in medical applications.

The general network topology of wearable medical devices uses two hops to transmit physiological sensor data to the cloud. In hop 1, the implanted or wearable device uses short-range communication technology (usually Bluetooth) to transmit the sensed signal to the gateway. The gateway can be a mobile phone, smart watch or other device, and then use Wi-Fi through a router or directly use cellular communication to send data to the cloud. This method is especially common for highly power-constrained medical devices that transmit data via Bluetooth to achieve a long battery life.

But with the increasing popularity of mobile 4G low-power wide area (LPWA) networks such as LTE-M and NB-IoT, highly power-optimized mobile devices can transmit health data to the Internet within a single hop.

Compared with the 4G technology used in smartphones, the use of enhanced power autonomy (comparable to power-optimized short-range communication technology) and enhanced coverage can support scenarios such as alarm systems that need to cover a wide range in emergency situations. With the development of 5G cellular technology, we may see a whole set of new use cases emerge that can take advantage of higher bandwidth, higher device density, or lower latency.

Ultimately, the impact of digital transformation of the healthcare system will be driven by lower costs, increased demand for capacity, and improved services. It is bound to elevate research and drug development to a whole new level. Besides, if we can sleep a few more hours at night, who will complain?

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