The Role of IoT in Healthcare Wearables: Benefits and Trends

Healthcare wearable IoT development is an extension of an ongoing evolution of technology. It is driven by two key factors: 

1. Moore’s law – devices becoming smaller in size, and 
2. Growing computational abilities to process more efficiently increasing data volumes. 

With that, everything becomes more interconnected. With interconnectedness comes accessibility. Then, it all becomes a base for data analysis and better decision-making. In healthcare IoT development, these advancements bring benefits in two key directions: consumer products and clinical settings. 

For consumers, same as companies make data-informed decisions, people want to make better choices about their lives. They want to make choices not because somebody told them to, but because they see their personal data. 

In clinical settings, we’ve seen how healthcare systems struggled to cope around the world during the pandemic. Healthcare workers exposure, understaffing, and more. Healthcare wearables solve the problem of scale while keeping healthcare workers safe. There are other quite important benefits as well. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore healthcare wearable IoT development as it relates to the benefits it brings and future trends.  

Overview: Healthcare Wearable IoT Development Impact on Healthcare Industry

So, let’s discuss the simplest sensor – the heart rate sensor. An LED heart rate sensor is extremely small and it costs literally pennies. This is why you can see its wide adoption in fitness tracking devices. The workout is the main area for stressing the cardiovascular system and measuring heart rate variability is indicative of recovery and stress levels. There are still people who during a workout pause after every 15 minutes to find a pulse point, count beats, calculate BMP, and look it up against the chart to make a decision whether to slow down, keep it up, or speed up on the next CrossFit round. Or, the modern way is to look at the smartwatch or react to the signal which can be customizable to your personal needs and goals. 

• So, basically, wearable IoT development makes it easier for people to track their vitals. 
• Then, it also helps with an insight layer to make this data actionable. Here, the custom healthcare app development kicks in. 
• Not only that, people have no opportunity to receive continuous data with traditional pre-biosensor-era devices.  

Let’s now examine how wearable IoT development creates new opportunities and improves the healthcare industry for consumers and hospitals.

Healthcare wearable IoT development in consumer devices

Healthcare IoT development has already integrated a range of sensors for daily use. Thinking of Fitbits and Apple watches only, the following are easily measurable:

• Blood oxygen levels instead of traditional pulse oximeters;
• ECG instead of going to a clinic, being attached to electrodes to the chest and limbs;
• Stress instead of tests run with galvanic skin response device available at laboratories;
• Temperature instead of using traditional thermometers;
• Respiration rate instead of either counting breaths or using a spirometer in a clinical setting;
• Blood pressure instead of traditional manual or automatic sphygmomanometer;

Another important consumer emerging wearable tech is continuous glucose monitor (CGM). This is a skin-breaking device so it won’t be as easily adopted as Fitbits or Apple Watches. And probably because CGM is a skin-breaking sensor, it won’t be integrated into Apple Watch or Fitbit. Yet CGMs measure glucose instead of drawing blood at a laboratory or piercing your finger and swiping it on a special paper.

To sum up, biosensors allow consumers to take and record their vitals conveniently, and continuously, and access this data. This empowers their decision-making whether it is for improving their well-being or controlling a chronic condition. 

Healthcare wearable IoT development in a clinical setting

In a clinical setting, advancements in wearable IoT development make quality healthcare more accessible via remote patient monitoring. With wearables approved for clinical use, the bigger picture expands to include integrations with electronic health records, emergency services, smart homes, and, also, ingestible sensors. All of it together enables greater symptom management. Additionally, such data availability is likely to drive innovation in the medical field. Fundamentally, wearable IoT development in healthcare is a key component of smart hospitals. 

After all, the sensor layer is fundamental to the notion of a smart hospital as it generates the underlying data. This year Apple Watch has been approved by the FDA for its atrial fibrillation (AFib) tool for use in clinical trials. In addition, Apple Watch released The Movement Disorder API that can track tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. 

During the COVID pandemic, the VitalPatch biosensor was used under EUA (Emergency Use Authorization for Medical Devices) in hospital settings. The VitalPatch device became an integral part of patient monitoring that was placed on a patient’s torso. It transmitted vitals such as:

• heart rate, 
• ECG, 
• intervals between two successive R-waves on an ECG, 
• heart rate variability,
• body temperature, 
• detection of falling, 
• steps,
• posture, and 
• respiratory rate. 

After its EUA ended, the VitalPatch continued to be used under FDA 510(k) clearance.

Regulation – FDA (HIPAA) and CE (GDPR) approvals

There are many more biosensors that are aimed at clinical settings. However, getting FDA approval (HIPAA) or CE approval (GDPR) can be challenging due to rigorous examination. 

• Overall, biosensor manufacturers try to seek FDA approval because it virtually means that the device can be used and sold anywhere in the world. However, sometimes local regulations might require approval as well. 
• CE approval gives permission for a device to be sold across 32 countries of the EU. 
• Importantly, “software as a medical device” starts to be recognized by these bodies as well.  

Benefits of Wearable IoT Development

Before looking into future trends, let’s look at the benefits IoT wearables already deliver in healthcare. Right off the bat, you can already see that some things were simply not possible using traditional methods. 

For instance, how many times per day could you pierce your finger to measure blood glucose? Now, you can easily see how your body reacts to food intake, exercise, or other metabolic processes impacting glucose levels. With custom IoT Development, it is possible to create a mix of sensors to cater to a distinct consumer base.

Moving onto a clinical setting, how else could you monitor so many patients without staff exposure if not for the VitalPatch? Sure, some level of exposure remains, yet the reduction in exposure was down to minimally necessary. So, here is a deeper dive into the benefits.

For personal use

• Proactive monitoring. Vitals such as heart rate, blood oxygen, blood pressure, and others, when recorded regularly, can show anomalies early. With this, healthcare professionals get the change to prevent many acute conditions .  
• Disease prevention. Among other examples, people can use CGMs to prevent type II diabetes. At present, in the USA, there are 98 million people with prediabetes and 80% are not aware that they have it. Catching it early and adjusting lifestyle based on CGM readings can be an easy way to reverse the onset of diabetes. 
• Empowerment. Even healthy people require actionable insight to ensure they are on the right track. It is almost a norm these days to monitor a workout through heart zones to ensure it’s safe and efficient without any negative consequences. Tracking deep sleep provides insight allowing a person to improve one’s ability to recover through the night and improve cognitive function. Stress management, heart patterns, eating habits, and skin temperature readings can all provide actionable insight to improve one’s well-being. If you want to start you own healthcare digita startup with an insight layer in healthcare, check the article “What Is Custom Minimum Viable Product (MVP) App Development?“
• Chronic disease management. As an example, CGMs Guardian G3 and Dexcom G6 and now Dexcom G7 for people with diabetes integrate an insulin pump. It creates a closed-loop system for managing the condition.
• Accessibility and comfort. CGMs, ECG sensors, and others can provide data that previously was inaccessible to people without diagnosed conditions or without a hospital appointment. In addition, previously that data was inconvenient to gather. One won’t be piercing a finger to measure glucose at work or in a gym. But now it is convenient and non-disruptive to one’s lifestyle.

For clinical use

• More accurate diagnostics. Continuous data presents opportunities to spot things that previously weren’t possible. For instance, even a hospital-grade ECG monitor with electrodes would miss things that a continuous ECG sensor will pick up. It applies across a variety of indicators that ultimately lead to more accurate diagnostics. 
• Scalable patient monitoring. Whether it is patient monitoring in hospitals or remote patient monitoring, healthcare wearable IoT development offers scale that previously wasn’t possible with traditional healthcare.
• Big Data Analytics. Big data in healthcare transforms every part of the healthcare system: from personalized healthcare to epidemiological studies to new medication development and new fields such as precision medicine.
• Personalization & Behavioral Insight. Clinicians can integrate treatment plans with behavioral patterns such as activity levels, sleep patterns, and other environmental and lifestyle factors. In addition, it is possible to integrate wearables with data on genetic specifics and general clinical data to tailor personalized treatments.
• Free up healthcare staff. By outsourcing recording vitals to devices, healthcare staff frees up their time for more meaningful activities. 
• Cost reduction and improved efficiency.  With disease prevention and catching a condition early, healthcare wearable IoT development can reduce costs and free up specialists and facilities for treating urgent and severe cases.  
• Emergency detection. Once abnormal data such as fall detection or heart rhythm abnormality is detected, medical staff or emergency contacts can get notified to save lives.

Future Trends of Healthcare Wearable IoT Development

When any new technology emerges be it digital photography or healthcare IoT development, it faces mixed reactions. 

• Some decide to embrace it head-on. This is generally because they see the potential and possibilities it opens up. 
• Others recognize the potential challenges and become skeptical. After all, they rightfully doubt reliability as there are very few proven solutions yet. 
• Some simply stay away from new technology because of fear. Fear of being replaced, services dehumanized, or control lost.

Let’s look at previous emergent technologies such as digital cameras. Didn’t people worry whether digital cameras would ever match the quality of film? And didn’t film photographers worry about being replaced by anyone with a digital camera? Despite that, digital photography created new industries and jobs. The same is starting to occur in healthcare wearable IoT development. 

The future trends look as follows:

• Similar to how digital photography became accessible to everyone, IoT wearables will become an everyday toolkit for the majority;
• Such wide adoption will propel conversations on social media, in communities, at homes, and between a patient and a clinician. It will change the dynamic of providing healthcare services.
• As with digital photography that created a host of new jobs and industries (e.g. digital photo editing, CGI, digital art, etc.), the same is bound to happen in healthcare. It is too soon to say, but we might see Digital Health Coaches, Remote Monitoring Specialists, Predictive Healthcare Strategists, and whatnot.

Significance of wearable IoT development

However, unlike digital photography which at its core is simply about capturing a moment, IoT in healthcare wearables touches something fundamental to every person. While digital photography is a pastime activity, IoT in healthcare wearables is a necessity for everyone. Therefore, the future trend for IoT in healthcare is nothing short of a new disruptive technology.

We are currently at the very start of the innovation S-curve in the picture above. The move along this S-curve is inevitable. After some years of slow development, rapid growth will follow. In a more distant future, the trend will get into market saturation with intense competition. So, now there is an opportunity to jump on a bandwagon as it is only starting to move. Being first to new markets, being first to make a difference with new technology, being first to capture the market share by delivering game-changing solutions.

Healthcare IoT development is a new revolution for the cycle in the healthcare industry. It is possible to remain on a traditional trajectory, but the demand for it will transform. Patients will expect to get sensors for remote monitoring. They will expect an opportunity for an online consultation instead of spending time getting to the hospital and waiting for hours in the line. Patients will expect to receive consultation on disease prevention rather than dealing with the disease. Doctors who dismiss patients’ data from sensors will be getting poor reviews. Therefore, healthcare wearable IoT development is the future of the healthcare system and its development will radically impact the healthcare market and the neighboring technologies and markets.

FAQ: IoT in Healthcare Wearables