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Summary of this blog

Thank you guys for reading our posts,
we hope we’ve enlightened your mind on some of our topics. Maybe you can use some of these new technologies in your future life, or even be part of the development of an IoT-technology.

As a recap, we’d like to go over some of the core ideas of our latest posts.

  • The Internet of Things (ubiquitous technology) will be the next big thing
  • We can use it in all sectors, but we have focused on healthcare
  • IoT is not only for ‘data mining’ (just sensing), but it can actually save your life, when the data is analysed correctly
  • We don’t want to be aware of the sensors, they have to be small. So your smartphone becomes the processing unit (to analyze the data)
  • Sharing your personal data to the right medical staff, causes less errors and better treatment
  • There are already some technologies out there, but the market is in need of more!
  • …

Again, thank you guys for keeping up and see you in the next!

tumblr_inline_mm2zkdUEhv1qz4rgp

 

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IoT, makes a simple pill a smartpill

Another application of IoT in healthcare, which we have discussed widely in our previous posts, are smart-pill. A smart-pill looks like a normal pill, but there is some smart technology inside. This makes it possible to evaluate the effects of other medication the patient has to take, to check if a certain medicine has been taken or just to record various physiological parameters. The recorded data can then be collected by a smartphone or a web application, either by the patient or by the local doctor.

Let us for example take a look at some older people. They often have to take a lot of pills every morning, which makes it possible for them to forget one or take one pill 2 times on the same day. IoT will offer these people a solution. When they visit the doctor for their prescription, the doctor can give them a smart-pill together with a device which the patient can take home and rings an alarm when not all the pills are taken or turns green when everything is okay. In this way the doctor also has a permanent monitoring system to take a closer at the effects of the prescribed medication. This can possibly decrease the amount of doctor visits some people have to make and creates a win-win situation!

Altough i see many advantages, there will ofcourse be disadvantages too. What do you guys think about smart-pills?

 

An example of a smart-pill capsule

 

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Purpose of identification in healthcare

A couple of posts back we mentioned the Internet of Things (IoT) was related to RFID (radio frequency identification).
We’ve already proposed some of its benefits, why current devices should be uniquely identifiable. But we figured we’d have to elaborate on this topic, to get your thoughts going.

In a journal[1] on the possibilities of the Internet of Things within healthcare, we’ve found RFID is an absolutely must.

We should use RFID in the healthcare industry with the following purposes

1) pharmaceutical/blood product distribution and tracking,
2) patient/medical staff identification and tracking,
3) medical asset tracking and locating,
4) implantable device RFID use,
5) other areas (including medical documents and patient records).

When you read these 5 main topics, you might get an idea of what purposes/impacts this tracking may cause. You can either see, the best security system, with no more problems with locating or authenticating either a medical person or a a medical device or even organs/blood. Or you can see the end of your professional privacy. Chances for a quick smoke on the roof, melt as snow in the sun.

What were your first thoughts whilst reading these 5 points?

For an example of nr. 4, please check this previous post

 

[1] 2012, C. E. Turcua, C. O. Turcua,”Internet of Things as Key Enabler for Sustainable Healthcare Delivery”

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I can hear again!

We’ve already explained a lot about the possibilities of the Internet of Things within healtcare. Here’s an example of what developers, already came up with:

Cochlear

Coclear has created an implantable hearing aid, that would allow you to hear again, if you were partially or even completely deaf. It has the capability to stream audio directly from your mobile phone or TV. For more info click the link, or the image.

We can link this directly to the Internet of Things, as a link in between non-living things and living things. Here, the sensor/actuator has entangled completely with the user (as it surgically implanted). It must be uniquely identifiable, as you don’t want anyone else to play music ‘inside your head’. And it shows the Internet of Things can be used to aid people with their healthcare.

 

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do I need IoT in Healthcare?

In the previous post, we discussed WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network) as a way to improve our personal healtcare.

You can say this is in line with the Internet of Things. For a WBAN, your smartphone as again a perfect fit to controll all sensors and actuators. By use of your personal phone, you become part of the IoT.

But why should we join this new technology, why do we really need to know what’s going on within and around our body?
First of all, it is already set in motion. By now the chances are high, you own a smartphone. This is the first medium, through which this new technology, mHealth (or mobile health) will be presented. So it will come to our lives without us really giving it a lot of thought.

“But still, I don’t need no constant medical care! This might be perfect for people with a disability or any given illness that requires intensive check-ups.”

That may seem so, these people can become less dependant on others, offering them more freedom and knowledge. For example, a 15 year old boy who suffers from diabetes type 1. Every day he has to check his blood sugar level, as mentioned in the previous post, this can be automated. But this technology goes much further!

Every single one of us could benefit from the IoT. By centralizing and offering your personal data (previous surgeries, blood-pressure level, heart-rate over time, … ) to the right medical team when needed, it can potentialy save your life as well.
Studies show it would improve people’s access to quality and affordable healthcare services, to reduce medical errors, to improve patient safety, and to optimize the healthcare processes.

Take a good look at the image below. This shows you how the Internet of Things can link up everything and pass all necessary data to the rightful recipients.

iotI’ll keep you guys posted on this topic, but if you are in need of an illustrative example, please ask.

 

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eHealths next step: WBAN

With the increasing healthcare cost and the aging population, eHealth is a very important topic in healthcare these days.

Although while everything is becoming mobile, eHealth has to keep up and introduced things like WBANs (Wireless Body Area Networks). These WBANs use a combination of sensors and actuators. The sensors fulfill the task of constantly monitoring some parameters, while the actuators will perform an action when needed. A good example here would be diabetics. They can have their glucose level measured constantly by a sensor, while the actuator can insert the correct amount of insulin needed at a specific time. When you know that 1 on 12 Belgian adults actually has diabetes and this number will increase to 1 on 10 by 2030 (Belgian diabetes register – http://www.bdronline.be/ ) , you can probably imagine how useful this system can become.

There are still some problems to overcome though:

  • As we already discussed in previous posts, privacy and security. You don’t want anyone with bad intentions to be able to control your body, do you?
  • Power consumption. As these devices are inserted inside your body and can’t make use of big battery packs, they have to be very power efficient and able to run for a long time without losing power
  • High data rate. As we want to be able to monitor our body continuously, a system is needed that can handle all these data and monitor it constantly when needed. ( i.e. cardiovascular disease)
BAN

Some of the available possibities.

Conclusion.
As mentioned at the beginning these WBANs are a very useful technology and with the current improvements in sensors and networking they will soon find their way to the patients who really need it. When integrated slowly and nearly observed this can become one of the main devices used by the medical world.

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Internet of Things

As stated in the previous post,
let’s dig a little deeper into the “Internet of Things” or IoT in short.

As some of you may know, this term is very hot at the moment. There’s a lot of new possibilities in almost every domain because of this trend.

internet-of-things-IoT

Now, for those of you who aren’t quite familiar with this term.
Let’s take a random object, let’s say your toothbrush. You know it’s your toothbrush and you like to keep it that way. There’s an obvious link in between you and your toothbrush, you use it and you have placed your toothbrush where it rests now. But your mother doesn’t know that link, she can’t know whether it’s your toothbrush or that of your brother.
Now, to solve that, we could use a low-tec nametag or a step further: RFID. In fact, IoT is closely linked to RFID. Giving a device a unique id.
But of course, there’s more to it! As the name suggests, it makes use of the internet to centralize that id, so it is even more unique.

smart toothbrushSo it’s just a fancy RFID system for your daily devices?” That’s indeed a good start! If we go back to our toothbrush example. What if your toothbrush could give you information on the amount of dental plaque? Even better, what if it doesn’t give you that information, but it sends it directly to your personal dentist? That may be a nice feature, but sounds super expensive. Well, that’s probably not true, with current hardware, and the use of our mobile devices as processing units, all of this is becoming feasible.

One more thing, we’ve been looking into devices now, but if you think of it, also people/companies are a part of the Internet of Things. In our example, both you and your dentist were uniquely identified and could have a connection. So by use of your smartphone, you yourself are also part of the IoT.

IoT can be considered as a shift in paradigm. “From anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone, we will now have connectivity for anything”

I hope you guys can link this to our previous posts and use this info for the ones to come. If you would think of your personal surroundings, what device would you like to include in your Internet of Things cloud?

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Sensors save lives!

We’ve been blasting sensors your ways to monitor everything. All sensors had as main purpose: luxury, ease of use, profit or simply providing knowledge.

But what if a sensor can save lives!

Think about it, you probably have a smoke detector at your place. Did you know, having a functional smoke detector, results into 45% less fire deaths? [1] But there are a lot more, less obvious sensors out there that can monitor your health.

This is a message, Nokia blasts into the world. We all know they provide us with top of the line smartphones, containing many hardware modules (sensors) of which we don’t even know they are there. Nokia wants engineers to create apps and new technologies that can be used for healthcare.

Imagine a smartphone that can pick mood changes, check your heart rate and other physical reactions, so it can predict a stroke 10 days in advance! This futuristic idea is what they would like to bring to our domestic environment by launching the Nokia Sensing Challenge. Does this tickle your senses? Would you enter the 2.25 million dollar contest?

This Sensing Challenge fits perfectly with the “internet of things“-trend and ubiquitous computing. That basically means connecting numerous electronics with eachother and the internet, often without us really thinking about it. In that way, we can monitor a lot of data, in a easy way (on your personal device). But we will explain more about this in the upcoming posts.

1. 2007, C. Garbacz, H. G. Thompson Jr., “Are smoke detectors as effective as the public health literature reports?”]
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Are they watching me?

Recently the dutch national police confirmed in an article in a dutch newspaper that they want to start working on their own intelligent network of cameras and sensors. In this way they can be alerted when an incident occurs at a specific location and get a better view on what is really happening.In this way they feel that they can react more accurate and efficient.

Personally i feel like monitoring what happens on the street is a good thing. In this way the police can always take a look at what really happened and it will make it a lot easier to punish the right people when incidents occur. As long as the government is honest about how they will use the cameras and who will be able to watch the recordings. Nowadays the police mostly has to use the recordings offered by cameras from local companies. And i feel like the government cameras can be much better for our privacy than those from the companies.

But on the other side, a government with bad intentions can abuse this system very easily, then it will lead to very scary situations instead of avoiding them.

What do you guys think about such a system, would it make you feel safer on the streets?  Or would you feel uncomfortable when you know that a camera is always recording every move you make?