Abstract

Employing the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare provides many advantages for patient monitoring and analysis of the patient’s health with the help of generated data. The basic role of IoT in healthcare is to ease the patient’s life by giving them a monitor over their medical condition. The use of IoT in medical devices requires a focus on the end-user. Medical devices such as glucose meters are designed to record the data of the patient and their vital signs. The generated information can be used to enhance decision-making for the physician. The collected information about the patient can be at risk due to certain security issues during the transferring of information can compromise the identity and social life of the patient. This review explores the IoT regarding its structural requirement and its role in various fields with special emphasis on healthcare. The security and privacy issues than can hinder the utilization of IoT at its potential and ways to overcome these issues are being addressed.

Role of IoT in medical devices

Medical Devices (MDs) are any instrument, reagent, apparatus, implement, machine or any other in-vitro reagent or calibrator, software which is intended to be used alone or in combination for the diagnosis, mitigation, prevention, treatment or alleviation of diseases in human beings.1 Generally, MDs are classified based on the risk associated with them. As per USFDA MDs are classified into three categories I, II, III where category I has lowest risk and category III has highest risk as shown in Table 12 (see Fig. 4)A report from Fortune Business Insights states that from 2018 to 2025 the Medical Device Industry will experience major investment in Research & Development of new technology from pharmaceutical players, approvals from regulatory authorities will also contribute to increase this number. The medical device global market was USD 42.5 Billion in 2018 and is estimated to reach USD 612.7 Billion by 2025. CAGR is expected at 5.4 % from 2018 to 2025.3

Further Medical Devices have been showing an increasing growth in the previous decade and with promising technology and innovations being made, it will keep growing more. Although there is conventional research and development being done by existing companies. With the entry of giants like Apple and Google, new technological advancements in the form of Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) are being implemented in this sector.4

Conclusion

The amalgamation of a variety of technology is required to build an IoT. Due to this complexity, the system becomes more vulnerable to security and privacy threats. The generic engineering framework involved in patient monitoring remotely should meet the security requirements with the help of cryptographic algorithms. These algorithms should be device-specific to nurture the design & environment of patient-specific needs. The security and safety issues of a patient which arise from the application of IoT cannot be solved with the help of a single solution. To practice, the best security controls an informed user is also necessary. The management ability of the network and device automation can be of great help to deliver patient well-being and care. Delivering healthcare to patients efficiently and effectively, independent of time and location requires a new paradigm that is opened by IoT. The existing foundations of telemedicine have now been extended and better assessment of normal public health in a cohort sense has shifted the passive involvement of patient data gathering. Improving the outcomes for the patient and reducing the care cost are being balanced against the privacy and confidentiality of data and threats of cyber security. There is a vast source of data collection and potential to transfer clinical data, but there is a challenge to triage this data for clinical use. The cyber security and safety of patient data need to move faster than regulation and implementation of policy. The way forward for IoT needs superior standards every day to use the connected devices.