What’s so special with IOT in Healthcare?

Global IoT in Healthcare market is expected to grow from US$ 20.15 billion in 2015 to US$ 135.87 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 21.2% between 2015 and 2025 as reported by Insight Partners.

Leading the adopter of IoT in Healthcare is North America, followed by Europe and thirdly by APAC region that is growing at a faster rate.

In fact, healthcare is always a big part of our lives as we moved from infanthood to old age hood. There are four phases of our lives which have different health considerations:

1. Baby
2. Teenage
3. Working adult
4. Senior citizen

The first two phases of health conditions probably are the responsibility of their parents who might want to monitor their children health. When they are working adults, the responsibility lies on themselves. That’s why we see most consumer fitness wearable devices are meant for them. With the pressure of work, they need a way to monitor their own health and quality of life. But as people aged, the responsibility will revert back to the concerned children who wanted a way to monitor their aged parent’s safety and health due to their busy schedule and live in separate homes.

Healthcare expenditures are under increasing pressure, particularly in developed markets, because of increasing demands from an aging population, the growing incidence of chronic diseases, notably governments needing to lower their overall expenditure. Check out Malaysia’s concerns for 2017 healthcare budget and why we can no longer afford any further cut.

We are seeing healthcare moving away from critical centers of care (e.g., hospitals) to home care and other care environments, which not only lowers costs but also improve patient quality of life and their ability to remain independent.

That’s why technology like Internet of Things (IoT) is critically and urgently required to solve the emerging healthcare challenges.

As quoted in this article:

The world is graying at a break-neck pace, and that’s bad news for the global economy.

By 2020, 13 countries will be “super-aged” — with more than 20% of the population over 65 — according to a report by Moody’s Investor Service.

 That number will rise to 34 nations by 2030. Only three qualify now: Germany, Italy, and Japan.

“Demographic transition … is now upon us,” warn Elena Duggar and Madhavi Bokil, the authors of the Moody’s report.

“The unprecedented pace of aging will have a significant negative effect on economic growth over the next two decades across all regions.

There will be a series of upcoming articles focusing on this issue and how technology like IoT can help the aging population. For a start, take a look at these three videos below which will highlight how aging population will impact our future generations and our world.

We wanted our cities to be livable and prosperous that are built upon well-functioning urban infrastructure services like health, energy, buildings and transportation. Without proper planning, cities will see their social and economic growth stifled in congestion, air pollution, health issues and blackouts. We also believed cities can be smarter if cities can quickly respond to the needs of the people.

The Smart City’s End Game

The final aim of Smart City is to:

• Make a better use of the public resources
• Increase the quality of the services offered to the citizens
• Reduce the operational costs of the public administrations.
• Support better living, create more opportunities, support stronger and more cohesive communities
• Improve the quality of life overall for all residents

By 2050 more than 6 billion people are expected to live in cities. Cities are hubs for cultural and economic activities. They are the engines of economic growth. But the development was not always “smart,” sacrificing health conditions, for instance, for greater productivity.

The Challenges

Cities are complex systems that are difficult to understand without the right information. We need to create cities that address people’s needs. That means learning city challenges by studying the people who use them. With Internet of Things (IoT), it will help us rethink how we monitor, measure and manage cities so we can make them healthier places for their inhabitants. Cities are complicated and have their own set of challenges, such as:

• Multiple authorities and commercial parties manage them.
• They constantly evolve, reacting to the needs of their inhabitants.

To make it happen, it requires a process of negotiation, integration, iteration. And there will be lots of different parties involved: political leaders, civil servants, service providers, technology companies, health services, police forces, property owners and most important of all, the citizens themselves.

Hey, City! Are You Alive?

Ultimately, there is the need to correctly understand our cities and the interactions that make them “alive,” so that we can make more informed decisions about the cities future. But first, answer this question – “Have you measured the Pulse of Your City? How healthy is your city?”

Presentation Slides “Listen to the Pulse of the City Using IoT” – DOWNLOAD