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Internet of Things Application in Life Sciences
CHAPTER
Internet of Things Application in Life Sciences
9
Sarbagya Ratna Shakya⁎, Sudan Jha† School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, United States⁎ School of Computer Engineering, KIIT-DU, Bhubaneswar, India†
9.1 Introduction The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects such as smart devices, actuators, and sensors that enables machine-machine and machine-human interactions. From these devices and sensors, data are collected that can be further used for analysis and action. With the increasing popularity of smart wearable devices such as smart watches, and the decreasing cost of sensors and chips, the application of IoT in the healthcare industry is growing day by day. With the continuing technological developments and their influence on people’s daily lives, studies show that the wearable markets will be worth more than $800 million by 2020. The growing global popularity also increases the necessity of making these devices even more powerful to meet the increased expectations. Fig. 9.1 shows some of the common features of the IoT in different fields. Big data accompanies the IoT, as the amount of data collected from the different devices of the IoT is vast. Another feature is communication; if the data provided by the IoT is not used, monitored, analyzed, and turned into meaningful insights, intelligence, and actions, then it has no value. To generate information from these data, the IoT devices should be able to communicate with other devices. For the generation of this data, sensors, IoT-enabled devices, appliances, physical objects, etc. are needed that can capture different forms of action and context and turn it into data. The overall configuration and management of these data and devices can be handled through different computing architectures and platforms. All IoT-enabled devices, sensors, and objects need to be connected in a network having different IoT connectivity and network protocols and standards. The data collected within the IoT needs to be analyzed and the smart usage of these data converted into automated processes, improved efficiency, minimized errors, solutions to challenges, and completed objectives. Intelligence is needed to analyze the data, in order to make the IoT more useful and capable. Automation in industry, business, devices, and software all play a major role in the IoT. The IoT ecosystem defines the purposes and intelligent actions of the Internet of Things in Biomedical Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817356-5.00012-7 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Communication Data information
Ecosystem
Internet of Things (IoT) Intelligence
Action
Connectivity
Sensors/ devices
FIG. 9.1 Different features of IoT.
IoT overall, not only in just a few technological parts but in all the community and context of the Internet. Hence the IoT can be defined through these different characteristics and features. Implementing the IoT through different technologies can provide many benefits to organizations. It can change the overall workplace with an increase in job opportunities, digital literacy, and data analysis. It can also increase workflow safety. The information collected from sensors in the IoT can be used to monitor confined and hazardous places and processes, which can minimize danger to humans or the environment, and the data can bring about better understanding of past events and mitigate future risks. The IoT can decrease the time required to collect, transform, analyze, and process the data collected as well as increase productivity. Also, organizations can benefit from the IoT by tracking behavior using real-time marketing strategies. The feedback and usage data collected from users provide guidelines for continuous improvements and create new business opportunities. Employee efficiency and productivity is improved by tracking people and processes and by tracing injuries, illness, absence, and incidents, providing the assistance needed for rootcause analysis, identifying any problems and their causes and finding appropriate solutions. Recently the IoT has been widely adopted in the life sciences field. Many subfields such as home monitoring tools, wearable devices, and more recently mobile healthcare applications have gradually adopted the IoT. With real-time data collected from networked sensors, information generated from these data can be used for
9.1 Introduction
improving the precision, speed, and planning of these devices. The devices thus allow tracking, monitoring, and management to provide better judgments and to reduce the risks of errors. Because of this, the IoT has now made its way into healthcare, health monitoring, patient care, drug science, and life science. It is also playing a role in the pharma industry, especially in the drug value chain from drug invention, development, manufacture, sales, and marketing up to patient consumption. The IoT has been used at every level, from research and development to the marketing of products up to patient engagements. It has helped companies improve their production lines and supply chains, promote their marketing strategies and detect their pros and cons along with the effectiveness of their research and development. The goal has been to diagnose, treat, and prevent patient illness with reduced operational costs, achieving greater efficiency. This digital technology has been a revolutionizing method in diagnosis, monitoring patient care, preventing disease, and improving treatment methods. The use of the IoT by medical institutions and medical personnel has been growing in recent times. The IoT has been applied in many fields and many others still show great potential for its implementation to solve ongoing problems. It can and has been used in smart cities to monitor the effects on buildings, bridges, or monuments of vibration, earthquakes, overloading, etc. It can be used to control and manage traffic, parking, accidents, and streetlights. Studies have been made to implement the IoT in home automation, where home appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, and security systems can be controlled remotely through mobile devices. This can save time, energy, and money and can prevent theft and other security issues. The IoT has also found its application in smart environments for detecting pollution and natural calamities. With the development of the IoT advancing with each passing day, factors such as data security, privacy and integrity concerns, high infrastructure development cost, and finite technical expertise in these areas have been some major issues to retard the speed of its growth. Despite the challenges, various types of IoT applications have emerged. Manufacturing, retail trade, information and finance, and other industries have so far been at the top in terms of value at stake. But with its major growth and large investment and scope, the healthcare industry shows a great potential for the future. Table 9.1 [1, 2] shows the projected evolution of foundational IoT technology in areas such as networking, software, hardware, and data. The concept is shifting toward self-learning and self-repairing networks. With communications technology allowing more flexibility toward device-device communications, the evolution is toward more context-aware networks. In software and algorithms, the focus is shifting toward goal-oriented, distributed intelligence, problem solving, and things-to-things collaboration environments, which are required to enhance effective communication. Hardware has also been one of the key elements in the IoT. From RFID tags to sensors built into mobile devices in the early days, the focus has now shifted more toward biochemical smart sensors and tiny sensors with possibilities for nanotechnology and new materials. Also, data collected from the devices have been a key asset in IoT for information generation. These data need to be
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Table 9.1 Evolution of Key IoT Technologies. Before 2010
2010–15
2015–20
Beyond 2020
Communication technology
• RFID, UWB, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth, ZigBee, RuBee, ISA 100, WIrelessHart, 6LowWPAN
• Unified protocol over wide spectrum
• Sensor networks
• Network context awareness
• Network cognition • Self-learning, selfrepairing network
Software and algorithms
• Relational database Integration • IoT-oriented RDBMS eventbased platforms • Sensor middleware • Sensor networks middleware • Proximity/Localization algorithms • RFID tags and some sensors • Sensor built into mobile devices • NFC in mobile phones • Smaller and cheaper MEMs technology • Serial data processing • Parallel data processing • Quality of services
Ultra-low power chip sets On-chip antennas Millimeter wave single chips Ultra-low power single-chip radios Ultra-low power system on chip Self-aware and self-organizing networks Sensor network location transparency Delay-tolerant networks Storage network and power network Hybrid networking technologies Large-scale, open semantic software modules • Composable algorithms • Next generation IoT-based social software • Next generation IoT-based enterprise applications
• Wide spectrum and spectrum-aware protocols
Network technology
• • • • • • • • • • •
• Goal-oriented software • Distributed intelligence, problem solving • Thing-to-things collaboration environments
• User-oriented software • The invisible IoT • Easy-to-deploy IoT software • Things-to- humans collaboration • IoT 4 All
• Multiprotocol, multistandards readers • More sensor and actuators • Secure, low-cost tags (e.g., silent tags)
• Smart sensors (biochemical) • More sensors and actuators (tiny sensors)
• Nanotechnology and new materials
• Energy, frequency spectrum-aware data processing • Data processing context adaptable
• Context-aware data processing and data responses
• Cognitive processing and optimization
Hardware
Data processing
Data from H. Sundmaeker, P. Guillemin, P. Friess, S. Woelfflé, Vision and Challenges for Realizing the Internet of Things, Clust. Eur. Res. Proj. Internet Things, Eur. Commission, 2010, p. 74.
9.2 Background/related work
analyzed and processed in real time, so data processing methods need to be upgraded and smarter in order to work in real time. More context-aware data processing and data responses are being developed for processing big data in the IoT.
9.2 Background/Related Work The IoT has become popular in many different fields, which have implemented it for different purposes and objectives. Fig. 9.2 shows some of the different fields where implementation of the IoT and development of smart devices have been much anticipated. The IoT has been widely used for wearable devices. In one study [3], a multiple case study was conducted to unfold a general business model that shows the influence of people in the wearable industry. Also in Ref. [4], the author describes the building blocks of wearable IoT (WIoT), including wearable sensors, Internet-connected gateways, and cloud and big data support, which the author has stated are key to future success in healthcare domain applications. In Ref. [5], the author has provided a review of wearable technology in the mining industry, where it is used for dust monitoring, supply chain management, and safety monitoring, and for outdoor environments, where the cameras in most cases are useful tools for site
Wearables
IoT in healthcare
Smart home IoT in poultry and farming Connected cars
Internet of Things(IoT)
Energy engagement
Industrial internet Smart retail
Smart cities
FIG. 9.2 Application of the IoT.
IoT in agriculture
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supervision and process control. A new concept of wearables along with the Internet of Everything (IoE) is presented [6], which is a combination of IoT, wearables, and the Internet of People (IoP). They have focused on the opportunities and challenges that are being created for organizations, governments, and every individual due to the flow of the IoE. Smart homes have been another key area of IoT applications. Home environment devices, such as lighting, home appliances, computers, security, and the camera, can be controlled and monitored remotely, as they will be connected to the Internet. In Ref. [7], the author has used Frugal Labs IoT Platform (FLIP) for building an IoTenabled smart home. With the increase in home automation and the use of sensors in the smart home, privacy has been a big issue in IoT. In this paper [8], the author has analyzed some key features to be added for a trusted smart home system. A smart home gateway architecture has been proposed, which is supported by web services for an automatic device and network configuration and automatic system update to solve the problem of security of the network, which is caused by installation and configuration to implement effective security policies. Another key application of the IoT has been in connected cars. Implementation of the IoT to connect cars is at least part of the solution to problems of congestion, lack of parking spaces, and more crowded cities. In Ref. [9], the challenges of wireless connections between the vehicle-sensor, vehicle-vehicle, vehicle-internet, and vehicle-road are in combatting the harsh communication environment around the vehicle. Also in Ref. [10], the author proposed the concept of a home IoTconnected vehicle with a voice-based virtual personal assistant. They have shown that combining sequential repetitive tasks into one and executing the essential task automatically with authorized permission will allow users to gain trust in the remote execution of tasks. Some of the other studies include development of a new smart queue system and its implementation in medical centers [11]. This software was built by using different programming languages, such as PHP, MYSQL database, and cloud-based storage. This system implements a queue system for reservations using both online and offline methods. Other technology has also been applied, such as in Ref. [12]. Researchers have used the ZigBee mesh protocol to develop an in-hospital healthcare system that can monitor the physiological parameters of the patient in the hospital. This has helped to minimize the total power consumption, increase the quality of care of the patient by regular monitoring, and reduce hospital costs. Also, recent works utilizing cloud technologies for data storage have been published, showing that the cloud is the best means to store and organize big data in the healthcare system [13]. In Ref. [14], the author introduces the application of IoT in the medical system with telemedicine, in clinical care and remote real-time ECG monitoring. In Ref. [15], the authors describe the importance of IoT technology in the roadmap of a smart city. They have suggested comprehensive demonstration sites and dataoriented smart city infrastructure to evaluate and verify the efficiency, economic feasibility, and influencing effects of developing IoT technologies and suggested services. The application of the IoT also includes identifying diseases in their early
9.3 Sensors used in IoT
state so that the outbreak of chronic diseases can be better controlled. In Ref. [16], an IoT and fog-based healthcare system have been proposed to identify and control the Chikungunya virus (CHV). Emergency and warning alerts are also generated to alert healthcare personnel and the government to control the outbreak of this virus in infected areas. Hence with the help of IoT sensors, fog computing, mobile technology, cloud computing and the Internet, fast spreading diseases such as CHV can be monitored, identified, and controlled early. In Ref. [10], wireless sensors and a mobile system network were combined to manage and remotely and automatically monitor environmental factors such as temperature, light intensity, ammonia gas, and food valve of a poultry farm. The smart farm provides real-time current information of the farm to the owner that can be monitored from smartphones. This reduces the cost, time, and effort and increases the quality and quantity of poultry farming. Similarly, in Ref. [17], a wireless sensor network is used in a poultry farm monitoring system to measure the temperature and humidity values. The data collected from these sensors are uploaded online and can be accessed using a web analysis application. This study has provided an online monitoring system to test the feasibility and reliability of poultry farm system. Other technologies such as Zigbee [18], a mobile system network [19], have also been implemented for advanced automatic high-tech poultry farming. This shows that the implementation of IoT sensors and data analysis can benefit in the monitoring and developing of our daily real-life agriculture industry. In Ref. [20], a detailed study has been presented of monitoring the heart rate of a football player during a football match to detect possible heart problems or possible injuries along with sudden death. The author has proposed a distributed framework based on IoT for monitoring biomedical signals from players where intensive data acquisition and high processing is a necessity.
9.3 Sensors Used in IoT Sensors have been a key element in the IoT industry. Sensors are used to collect data for any change in the physical device. Sensors detect a change in the environment, measure a physical phenomenon such as temperature or pressure, and transform it into an electrical signal. Different sensors have been used for different applications. The sensors can be simple, such as a temperature or pressure sensor, or more complex sensors that report a multiple data stream instantaneously. With the IoT devices moving toward smarter and more advanced automation, the need of the sensors to have more smart features to be able to solve modern-day automation challenges has been growing. These sensors should be smart enough and capable of communicating with each other and with other remote devices as well. The sensors should be more accurate and precise, and have low power consumption, small size, and low cost. Many IoT applications in home automation, wearables, industry, and healthcare have used advanced sensors to make their systems more advanced and smarter in their automation. Some of the sensors, their types, and application areas are listed in Table 9.2.
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Table 9.2 List of Sensors Used in the IoT. Type
Sensors
Application
Environment sensors
Smoke sensor
Construction site, industrial units, manufacturing industry, etc. Audio monitoring, smart cities, smart buildings, etc. Thermostats, weather-related IoT devices Power plant, industry, fire alarm system Power plant industry Smart home Boilers, water system, touchscreen devices, weather monitoring devices, automotive industry, etc. Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, thermostats, etc. Healthcare industry, wearable
Sound sensor Humidity sensor Flame sensor Fume sensor Light sensor Piezo/pressure sensor
Temperature sensor Biosensors
Position and location tracking sensors
Communication modules
Other sensors
Electrocardiogram heart monitoring sensor Finger chip heart rate sensor GPS Altimeter Magnetometer Accelerometer, gyroscope Proximity sensors/ ultrasonic sensor Bluetooth module RFID module Wi-Fi ZigBee Arduino Uno Raspberry Pi Motion sensor Optical sensor
Speed sensor Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) Infrared sensor Image sensor
Vehicle tracking system, smart care, wearable Medical application, weather monitoring, etc. Medical and biomedical application Pedometers, antitheft devices, leveling Smart car, food industry, machine tools, parking and museums, etc. Connect device to the internet
Used for interaction between sensors Smart home Telecom, elevators, construction, healthcare, safety systems, mining operations, oil refineries, chemical plants, etc. Smart car Healthcare, health monitoring, etc. Military applications, electronics, chemical and healthcare industries Healthcare, transportation, security systems, etc.
9.4 Applications in life sciences
Many large and influential technology firms including Alphabet, Apple, Dell EMC, General Electric, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Philips, Samsung, and SAP have entered the IoT space in a big way and are hoping to make things happen quickly. They have invested heavily in this field and major research work is ongoing. Many IoT start-up companies in the healthcare field have appeared in recent years. They are working on finding new applications to improve the diagnosing, monitoring, and management of patients and treatment within the healthcare system. Fig. 9.3 shows the mapping of the private start-up IoT companies that are operating in the healthcare sectors into different applications, such as infant monitoring, fitness wearables, biometrics sensors, etc. Among the many categories, start-up companies such as Augmedix and Obaa are working on wearables like smart glass for charting. Simplifeye uses the Apple Watch for doctors to track patient visits and access EMRs. Startups such as Awarepoint emphasize IoT sensors for tracking the location of a patient and medical equipment and AdhereTech tracks medicine adherence. Companies such as EarlySense and Monica Healthcare have focused on clinical and hospital settings based on connected biometric sensors. IoT devices such as clinical grade wearables are being developed by Quanttus and MC10, and an auto refractor has been developed by Eyenetra, a cessation tracker by Chrono Therapeutics, a smart thermometer made by Kinsa, ECG by Qardio AliveCor, and a fitness tracker wearable by Lumo and OMSignal. There are some companies such as Hello and Beddit who are working on sleep tracking and Owlet and Sproutling are working on wearable technology that tracks infants’ movements and vitals. Some of the real-life applications in progress in IoT and the companies that are involved in those fields are listed in Table 9.3.
9.4 Applications in Life Sciences In the field of life sciences, integration of IoT is the latest way to improve patient health and advanced medicine. It has been a leading source of information, obtained from the data collected from the networked sensors. IoT has been applied in a variety of ways, from using sensors in machines to facilitate production to improve the reliability and responsiveness of the supply chain. Fig. 9.4 [21] shows the approach of using IoT in healthcare for sharing information. The complete information about a certain patient, which is stored in multiple locations such as a hospital, laboratories, or with a general practitioner, can be gathered through health information exchange using IoT and be displayed on an electronic device when needed. This will reduce the necessity for this to be communicated with the central server for information exchange. IoT can also be used to detect any failure in the machine in the production process. It is applied to collect machine sensor data, which can be used in the research and development department to improve the design and quality of the devices. Devices such as wearables, motion sensors, and facial recognition have been used to precisely measure the patient’s health condition and to adapt the prescribed therapies using the patient’s exact diagnosis. Some of the IoT-based smart devices that have been implemented in the life sciences are listed.
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FIG. 9.3 List of private IoT companies operating in the healthcare sector. Source: cbinsights.
9.4 Applications in life sciences
Table 9.3 List of Companies Working on IoT Applications in Different Fields. Fields
Companies
Smart home Wearables Connected cars
Nest, Ecobee, Ring, August Google, Samsung Tesla, BMW, Apple, Google
Nonliving things linked to living things
Emergency unit HLT server
RFID tags RFID reader
Intelligent wheelchair Companion robot
Home appliances
Glucose tester
Laboratory Mobile devices
Sensors
Internet of things
Public authority
Non HL7 information system
Hospital Hospital
HLT server
Air quality monitoring station
General practitioner
Wheater station
FIG. 9.4 An IoT approach to healthcare.
9.4.1 Organ-on-a-Chip The advent of organs-on-chips has been heralded as a new tool with great potential for human biological research. Researchers have developed microfluidic culture devices that recapitulate the microarchitecture and function of human organs. They have created some working models of human organs, including liver, lung, intestine, kidney, skin, bone marrow, blood-brain barriers, and even the female reproductive system. These microchips facilitate understanding of the functions of living human organs and help to improve research and development productivity, reduce data reporting
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time and cost, and increase drug efficiency. The main objective is to use this new technology for personalized medicine and for modeling disease and facilitating drug development, replacing the traditional animal testing. Some of the biosensors that are being used in organ-on-a-chip platforms are sensors for detection of metabolism products, physical parameters, monitoring cell fate, cell viability, single cell analysis, cell differentiation analysis, cell sorting, and cell separation [22].
9.4.2 Chip in a Pill The IoT has been applied in the form of a digital drug called chip-in-a-pill technology. A drug with a digital ingestion tracking system and cameras is used to send information from inside the body, such as organ images, to an adhesive patch. These data can also be sent to doctors’ offices, smartwatches, wearable devices, or smartphone apps, where they can be used for diagnosis and to study the drug efficiency and treatment procedures. These data are also used to track drug use, where the physician is alerted to any missed doses. This has been used with drugs to treat diseases such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental illness. Recently the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world’s first digital drug manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., with the help of Silicon Valley’s Proteus Digital Health Inc. It is used to treat bipolar disorder and other mental health problems [1].
9.4.3 Google Glass Google Glass, a brand of “smart glasses,” has been used recently to record visual information of a patient during their conversation with a medical professional. Thus the physician or the medical personnel do not have to keep a record of the patient while examining them, since the device they are wearing will store it for them. This reduces the amount of time spent on patient recordkeeping and administrative work and also reduces the total amount of time spent on each patient. Also, using Google Glass, medical personnel can access training videos, instructions, and share perspectives with specialists around the world. The data collected from these devices can be used for further analysis and study proposals. Many healthcare centers are adopting the use of smart glasses in their primary healthcare and other clinic-based specialties.
9.4.4 iBeacons iBeacon is a protocol developed by Apple and used in a number of small BLE devices from different manufacturers; these devices broadcast a near-constant radio signal to smart devices, providing information about the patient and their location. These devices are also used to keep track of expensive equipment and assets in the hospitals. With digital access to these devices, users can find not only the patient but also the hospital staff and doctors’ locations and other information quickly. In paper [23], among many iBeacon applications, a home healthcare app has been suggested to explore how these applications can support homecare personnel while performing
9.4 Applications in life sciences
routine checkups and healthcare activities with patients in their homes. Not only for the patient, iBeacon technology has also found application in other healthcare fields, such as using the beacons along with other devices to assist blind people and as an assistive tool for indoor navigation.
9.4.5 Sensors in Drug Delivery Devices Sensors are attached in drug delivery devices to monitor drug dosage and keep track of the patient’s medication. This is helpful for those patients whose illness requires continuous monitoring for efficient intervention. It equips the healthcare providers and patient with a tool to acquire, analyze, and monitor medication usage data. From chewing leaves and roots of medicinal plants generations ago, drug evolution has brought us to a sophisticated drug delivery system for pills, syrups, capsules, tablets, elixirs, solutions, extracts, and many other types of drugs, making drug delivery more consistent and uniform. Some of the factors that need to be considered for controlled drug delivery are drug property, route of administration, nature of the delivery vehicle, mechanism of drug release, the ability of targeting, and biocompatibility [13].
9.4.6 Digital and 3D Printed Pills When a person consumes a pill with a chip, the chip can transmit information about the inner body of the person to a mobile device. The photos taken by the chips can give the specialist an insight into the inner functions of the organs and the effect of the drugs on the inner part of the human body. These devices can also transmit data to a mobile application or a wearable device or to a specialist for further analysis and diagnosis. Also, healthcare authorities can send instructions to the 3D printer to print the medicine from their homes by using some devices and sensors for the proper patient medication dosage.
9.4.7 Automatic Smart Wheelchairs Smart wheelchairs have built-in computers, sensors, and assistive technology, whose functions and operations are managed by the IoT. In Ref. [24], a state-of-the-art overview of the most researched areas of smart wheelchairs and their applications is presented. The integration of the IoT in smart wheelchairs will help medical personnel to gather information from the patient and to track the patient’s condition and progress without extra office visits. It can provide information about the patient’s blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen saturation, and the physical position of the patient.
9.4.8 Wearables and Wristbands Wristbands are used to measure a person’s heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, number of steps, oxygen level, and many more variables. Usually, the wristbands include plastic bands with a flexible circuit board and a biosensor with
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electrodes embedded inside. The electrical signals generated from the sensors are digitized by microcontroller chips and the information is transmitted wirelessly through Bluetooth. The data is transmitted to an Android or iPhone mobile application, where it can be displayed, stored, and analyzed. This information provides the user’s physical health conditions, which can be sent to medical personnel for further monitoring and analyzing of the health condition of the user/patients remotely. This also allows tracking of the daily activities of users. Also, in hospitals, it is used to keep track of the patient general information like ID, medication, allergies, and medical records. The practice of color-coded wristbands is being implemented for patient safety, such as red for allergy and yellow for fall risk, helping to reduce confusion and improving prescriptions and patient safety. Following are some of the specific commercial products developed that have implemented IoT. I. Contact lenses that monitor glucose levels The smart contact lens has been one of the most anticipated IoT devices. The smart lens is like a regular contact lens but with a sensor able to measure and track blood glucose levels. It can also be able to assist those having eye problems. The lens has a microchip that sends data on the glucose level from the user’s tears to its smartphone app. A biosensing contact lens, introduced by a team of researchers affiliated with UNIST, has built-in pliable, transparent electronics with stretchable electrodes. The information, in the form of electrical signals, is collected and transmitted from the glucose sensor to the LED through the antenna contained in the contact lens, wirelessly and in real time. According to researchers [25], the smart contact lens provides a platform for wireless, continuous, and noninvasive monitoring of physiological condition as well as the detection of biomarkers associated with ocular and other diseases. II. Smart pills that monitor medication adherence and response Smart pills contain an ingestible sensor, about 1 mm square made of silicon and food materials, delivered inside a small, inactive tablet taken along with the prescribed medication; it is activated after it comes in contact with the stomach. The wearable patch receives information from the ingestible sensor, including dose timing, heart rate, activity, and skin temperature, among other things, and sends the information to the application via Bluetooth so it can be accessed by health personnel, family members, or the user. The main objective of this is to improve medication adherence and measure medication effects in real time. This can also be used in combination with other technology, such as smart pill containers, proximity sensing, and vision systems to improve medication adherence during patient treatment [26]. III. Hearing device A smartphone-connected hearing-aid device with voice search, RFID sensors, and biometric analytics is another recent smart healthcare product. Its features include the ability to remember sound preference based on the surroundings and location and to connect to Bluetooth and other devices to stream the sound directly into the hearing aid without the need for headphones. It also includes voice-enabled personal assistance, to help with administrative tasks, morning routines such as weather
9.5 Benefits of IoT in life sciences
updates, coffee brewing, switching lights on, etc. These devices can help people with hearing disabilities to improve their hearing and is having a positive influence on the way hearing instruments are perceived. IV. Heart rate monitor patch With increases in heart disease and heart attacks, continuous heart rate monitoring systems have become important tools. A heart rate monitor patch records heart rate data, which is later sent to and analyzed by medical personnel. The most effective form of treatment can then be prescribed by the doctor based on the data recorded. Commercial products such as Zio by iRhythm can report on the patient’s heart rhythm along with daily and total atrial fibrillation and ectopy burden, symptom/ rhythm correlation, most relevant heart rhythm strips, heart rate trends, preliminary interpretation and key findings, and premature ventricular contraction (PVC) burden and morphologies. Also a study [27] has been made to measure heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, posture, steps, and falls using a wireless Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) patch sensor with two electrocardiography (ECG) electrodes, a microcontroller, triaxial accelerometer, and BLE transceiver. V. Wristband to monitor heartbeat, blood pressure, calories Wristbands, commonly known as fitness trackers or smartwatches, can help with meeting fitness goals, tracking progress, and planning. These wearable devices have lots of different features and functions and can also synchronize with other devices and mobile applications. They can send phone notifications and allow the user to check emails. Their primary use is to track, monitor, and store data on cardiovascular exertion, cross training, biking, heart rate, number of steps, sleep quality, blood pressure, and calories burned in a day. Many different brands are available with differing features, sizes, shapes, colors, and prices. They connect via Bluetooth to Android or iOS devices for data and information transfer. VI. Insole sensor that measures weight bearing, balance, and temperature These smart insoles can be placed in any pair of shoes to measure weightbearing, balance, acceleration, and foot temperature. Studies have been made of pressure insoles with inertial measurement units (IMUs), to demonstrate that they can be used as a wearable alternative for objective quantification of gait and dynamic balance measures [28]. Also, instrumented shoe insoles have been designed with force-sensing resistors and pressure sensors to measure the weight of a person during their daily activities [29]. In the commercial market, Moticon’s OpenGo sensor insoles can measure different features like weightbearing or foot temperature. They incorporate pressure sensors, accelerometer, temperature sensor, and integrated storage to monitor a patient continuously.
9.5 Benefits of IoT in Life Sciences The IoT has provided some remarkable advancements in the life sciences industry. With the IoT, communication between devices and device-to-human is possible, and automation and control can be developed through these continuous connections.
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The advances in smart devices used in healthcare have proven beneficial to patients, medical personnel, manufacturing companies, and the healthcare industry in general. With data collected from the sensors of smart devices, the IoT has been able to boost performance in diagnosing diseases, monitoring patient conditions, developing preventive measures, developing new treatments, and inventing new and more powerful drugs. It has also led to improvements in the entire pharma industry as well as the healthcare chain. The big data collected from the sensors of smart devices in real time and the resulting diagnoses have proven beneficial for research and development units to develop new drugs and facilitate improved treatment and efficiency. Having more information has helped in decision making, making it easier, faster, and more effective. This has also greatly reduced the operational costs through faster screening. Optimal utilization of energy and resources can be achieved by using IoT devices kept under surveillance and sending alerts of possible breakdowns or damage to a system. Reporting on parameters such as temperature, logistics monitoring, or warehousing can reduce costs in the supply chain, which directly reduces the total cost of the drugs. Also, by analyzing and monitoring the data collected from sensors, better marketing strategies and quality products can be developed to increase sales. With all these advancements, the patient is benefited as the end user. Improvements in the life sciences industry have improved healthcare equipment and methods, resulting in better diagnosis of disease, treatment procedures, drug efficiency, and patient healthcare. All this increases the comfort of patients and improves the quality of their daily lives. Some of the key benefits of the IoT in the life sciences industry are discussed in the following sections.
9.5.1 Advanced Equipment With the inclusion of more sophisticated sensors and smart devices, the IoT has provided more advanced equipment that can be used for early diagnosis of diseases and can provide significant assistance for specialists in their treatment. With chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or pulmonary disease, continuous monitoring makes a huge difference in both prevention and cure. Also, with the decreasing costs of microchips and increasing efforts to make devices more advanced and smarter, the automation systems to manage the big data collected from smart sensors will be upgraded alongside.
9.5.2 Advanced Drugs With the advent of smart devices such as organs-on-chips and pills with chips, the IoT has been able to help with better understanding the effects of drugs on the human body, which results in the improvement of these drugs. After the drugs are dispensed inside the human body, the body’s responses can be continuously monitored using the IoT. This has helped researchers to know better how their medication works and has assisted them in improving the efficiency of the drugs.
9.6 Challenges of IoT in life sciences
9.5.3 User-Friendly Devices With the development of the IoT, wearable devices and blood pressure monitoring systems have allowed patients to monitor their own health without the help of medical personnel. With the help of wearable devices on their wrist or elbow, they can measure their own body temperature, heart rate, oxygen level, blood pressure, glucose level, and many other parameters. Also, these data can be sent to medical personnel and the patient can receive feedback almost immediately, which can prove beneficial in critical situations.
9.5.4 Assets for Research and Development Data collected through different sensors and actuators from IoT devices have proven to be a great asset for analyzing and monitoring factors affecting the healthcare industry. Also, with devices such as organ-on-a-chip, which provides a working model of the human body, the effect of new drugs can be monitored without traditional animal testing. This technology has reduced the sacrifice of animal lives for drug discovery and testing and is playing a crucial role in research. It has also increased productivity and has highly facilitated drug discovery and development.
9.5.5 Minimize Cost IoT in life sciences has reduced the amount of money needed to invent and test the effectiveness of drugs. The numerous trials and animal testing needed are very expensive and are risky investments, as only good test results will allow a drug to be successful. With the development of IoT devices, the time and cost of continuous multistage testing and monitoring can be decreased. Also, with a proper supply chain, aid by the IoT, minimizing the cost of transportation of the drugs can also lower the operational costs, which will lower the actual cost of the drug for end users.
9.6 Challenges of IoT in Life Sciences With every new technology, many challenges and issues arise that need to be tackled for ultimate success to be achieved. With much more access to consumer data, health organizations face significant challenges in managing, interpreting, and protecting patient data. As big data comes in, health systems must have the infrastructure, resources, and processes to extract the necessary information from it. Also, with cyberattacks on almost every network, the companies must invest heavily in protecting their networks. Following is a list of some of the more prominent challenges that the IoT faces in the life sciences field. Also, with increases in customer expectations, the continuous need to upgrade hardware and devices to make them smarter and more autonomous has been a big challenge for the IoT. Some of the other challenges for IoT healthcare services are power consumption, storage limitations, mobility, scalability, communication media, dynamic networks, and dynamic security updates. Some of the major challenges of IoT in life sciences are discussed in the following sections.
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9.6.1 Data Security and Privacy One of the most prominent challenges for the IoT is data security and privacy. With data pouring from sensor to sensor and device to device in real time, protecting these huge amounts of data from cybercriminals has been a difficult problem. These data can be hacked and the privacy and personal health information (PHI) of not only the patient but also of the doctors and other health personnel can be compromised. This information can be misused in a number of ways, such as fraudulent identification, illegal drug purchases, false insurance claims, etc. Data related to critical equipment and company information can be hacked as well, and frequent announcements of security breaches may need to be made, which can lead to loss of confidence in the organization and the health system. Such situations need to be stopped in advance by proper security. Some of the main security requirements for IoT-based healthcare are confidentiality, integrity, authentication, availability, fault tolerance, and data freshness.
9.6.2 Integration/Compatibility: Multiple Devices and Protocols With so many devices connected with each other and a lack of common communication protocols and standard, integration of multiple devices can be a big challenge for IoT in the life sciences. Differences in communication protocols and standards of so many connected devices can delay data aggregation and can complicate the communication between these devices. This complication in the process can have adverse effects on the overall performance and scalability of IoT in the life sciences. Also, although most experts believe in the necessity of IoT regulation, lack of authorship for setting up such regulations has resulted in the failure to formulate any clear standards or guidelines for the users to follow.
9.6.3 Data Overload and Connectivity With so much data collected from so many devices, analyzing, managing, and deriving insights from it require a great deal of effort and many specialists. Doctors are finding it difficult to derive the understanding they need, which has affected their decision making. And the addition of new smart devices in healthcare seemingly every day brings the added problems of more data, upgrading of resources, adding new infrastructure, and finding qualified personnel. Also, with so many devices connected, after some time users are likely to experience significant bottlenecks in IoT connectivity, efficiency, and overall performance, using the existing connectivity technology of centralized, server/client paradigms to authenticate, authorize, and connect different nodes in a network. New systems to handle information sharing of such a large amount of data will require large investments of both money and time, to maintain cloud servers that are able to share information with the various servers, workstations, and systems.
References
9.7 Conclusion With the increasing use of IoT devices and sensors in the life sciences to remotely manage, control, track, and monitor healthcare elements, productivity has increased and errors are minimized. By providing real-time information collected from users, the quality of products and services will continue to be improved. Analysis of these data can be used for decision making, along with quality upgrading of the products. With many devices still coming into the network on a regular basis, the big data collected from these devices can provide many benefits. However, it will be a challenge to extract the required information from these enormous amounts of data. To manage such big data, the set-up and assembling of resources, infrastructure, and expert manpower will be a difficult task. The accumulated data will include sensitive information and thus concerns over data security, privacy, transfer and regulatory compliance also arise. To overcome these security problems, companies can use third-party cloud computing solutions to some extent. The IoT also serves various purposes across the value chain of products, as it transfers data from patients to home, home to HCP, and from home to hospitals as well as to medical personnel. These data can be used in research and development centers to improve device performance. Key benefits that can be perceived from the IoT are an increase in workforce productivity, cost savings, opportunity of new business models, and better collaboration with colleagues and patients. Wearables, IoTenabled biosensors, and robots for medication and supplies delivery in hospitals are some areas where the IoT will play a major role. Also, in future data handling techniques such as machine learning can be used for big data analysis and classification in life sciences.
References [1] I. Lee, K. Lee, The Internet of Things (IoT): applications, investments, and challenges for enterprises, Bus. Horiz. 58 (4) (2015) 431–440. [2] H. Sundmaeker, P. Guillemin, P. Friess, S. Woelfflé, Vision and Challenges for Realizing the Internet of Things, Clust. Eur. Res. Proj. Internet Things, Eur. Commission, 2010. [3] K. Dubs, K. Koschell, Wearable Devices: A Technological Trend With Implications for Business Models, Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2018. [4] S. Hiremath, G. Yang, K. Mankodiya, Wearable Internet of Things: concept, architectural components and promises for person-centered healthcare, in: 2014 4th International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare—Transforming Healthcare Through Innovations in Mobile and Wireless Technologies (MOBIHEALTH), 2014, pp. 304–307. [5] M. Mardonova, Y. Choi, Review of wearable device technology and its applications to the mining industry, Energies 11 (3) (2018) 547. [6] J. Kietzmann, K. Robson, Introduction to wearable technology and the internet of everything minitrack, in: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2017.
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[7] T. Malche, P. Maheshwary, Internet of Things (IoT) for building Smart Home system, in: 2017 International Conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) (I-SMAC), 2017, pp. 65–70. https://doi.org/10.1109/I-SMAC.2017.8058258. [8] H. Lin, N.W. Bergmann, IoT privacy and security challenges for smart home environments, Information 7 (3) (2016) 44. [9] N. Lu, N. Cheng, N. Zhang, X. Shen, J. Mark, Connected vehicles: solutions and challenges, IEEE Internet Things J. 1 (2014) 289–299. [10] Y. Kim, H. Oh, S. Kang, Proof of concept of home IoT connected vehicles, Sensors (Basel) 17 (6) (Jun. 2017) 1289. [11] F.A. Maulana, H.P.B.A. Nugroho, H. Santoso, RUKITON—smart queue reservation system for medical center, in: 2017 IEEE 8th Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC), 2017, pp. 159–163. [12] R.K. Kodali, G. Swamy, B. Lakshmi, An implementation of IoT for healthcare, in: 2015 IEEE Recent Advances in Intelligent Computational Systems (RAICS), Trivandrum, 2015, pp. 411–416. https://doi.org/10.1109/RAICS.2015.7488451. [13] S. Baker, W. Xiang, I. Atkinson, Internet of things for smart healthcare: technologies, challenges, and opportunities, IEEE Access, vol. 5, 2017, pp. 26521–26544. https://doi. org/10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2775180. [14] D. Lu, T. Liu, The application of IOT in medical system, in: 2011 IEEE International Symposium on IT in Medicine and Education, vol. 1, 2011, pp. 272–275. [15] E. Park, A.P. del Pobil, S. Kwon, The role of Internet of Things (IoT) in smart cities: technology roadmap-oriented approaches, Sustainability 10 (2018) 1388. [16] S.K. Sood, I. Mahajan, Wearable IoT sensor based healthcare system for identifying and controlling chikungunya virus, Comput. Ind. 91 (2017) 33–44. [17] M. Murad, K.M. Yahya, G.M. Hassan, Web based poultry farm monitoring system using wireless sensor network, in: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT ‘09), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009. Article 7, 5 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/1838002.1838010. [18] B. Ghazal, K. Khatib, K. Chahine, A poultry farming control system using a ZigBeebased wireless sensor network, Int. J. Control Autom. 10 (2017) 191–198. [19] K. Sravanth Goud, A. Sudharson, Internet based smart poultry farm, Indian J. Sci. Technol. 8 (2015). [20] H. Mora, D. Gil, R.M. Terol, J. Azorín, J. Szymanski, An IoT-based computational framework for healthcare monitoring in Mobile environments, Sensors 17 (10) (2017). [21] C. Turcu, C. Turcu, Internet of things as key enabler for sustainable healthcare delivery, Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 73 (2013) 251–256. [22] T. Kilic, F. Navaee, F. Stradolini, P. Renaud, S. Carrara, Organs-on-chip monitoring: sensors and other strategies, Microphysiol. Syst. 2 (2018) 5. [23] E.R. Sykes, S. Pentland, S. Nardi, Context-aware mobile apps using iBeacons: towards smarter interactions, in: Proceedings of the 25th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, 2015, pp. 120–129. [24] J. Leaman, H.M. La, A comprehensive review of smart wheelchairs: past, present, and future, in: IEEE Trans. Hum. Mach. Syst. 47 (4) (2017) 486–499. https://doi.org/10.1109/ THMS.2017.2706727. [25] J. Park, et al., Soft, smart contact lenses with integrations of wireless circuits, glucose sensors, and displays, Sci. Adv. 4 (1) (Jan. 2018) eaap9841.
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[26] M. Aldeer, M. Javanmard, R.P. Martin, A review of medication adherence monitoring technologies, Appl. Syst. Innov. 1 (2) (2018) 14. [27] A.M. Chan, N. Selvaraj, N. Ferdosi, R. Narasimhan, Wireless patch sensor for remote monitoring of heart rate, respiration, activity, and falls, in: 2013 35th Annu. Int. Conf. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Soc., 2013, pp. 6115–6118. [28] M.I. Mohamed Refai, B.J.F. van Beijnum, P.H. Veltink, Pressure Insole for Gait and Balance Estimation, 2017. [29] E. Campo, Y. Charlon, D. Brulin, Instrumented insole for weight measurement of frail people, in: Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA ‘15), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1145/2769493.2769525. Article 60, 6 pages.
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9
Sarbagya Ratna Shakya⁎, Sudan Jha† School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, United States⁎ School of Computer Engineering, KIIT-DU, Bhubaneswar, India†
9.1 Introduction The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects such as smart devices, actuators, and sensors that enables machine-machine and machine-human interactions. From these devices and sensors, data are collected that can be further used for analysis and action. With the increasing popularity of smart wearable devices such as smart watches, and the decreasing cost of sensors and chips, the application of IoT in the healthcare industry is growing day by day. With the continuing technological developments and their influence on people’s daily lives, studies show that the wearable markets will be worth more than $800 million by 2020. The growing global popularity also increases the necessity of making these devices even more powerful to meet the increased expectations. Fig. 9.1 shows some of the common features of the IoT in different fields. Big data accompanies the IoT, as the amount of data collected from the different devices of the IoT is vast. Another feature is communication; if the data provided by the IoT is not used, monitored, analyzed, and turned into meaningful insights, intelligence, and actions, then it has no value. To generate information from these data, the IoT devices should be able to communicate with other devices. For the generation of this data, sensors, IoT-enabled devices, appliances, physical objects, etc. are needed that can capture different forms of action and context and turn it into data. The overall configuration and management of these data and devices can be handled through different computing architectures and platforms. All IoT-enabled devices, sensors, and objects need to be connected in a network having different IoT connectivity and network protocols and standards. The data collected within the IoT needs to be analyzed and the smart usage of these data converted into automated processes, improved efficiency, minimized errors, solutions to challenges, and completed objectives. Intelligence is needed to analyze the data, in order to make the IoT more useful and capable. Automation in industry, business, devices, and software all play a major role in the IoT. The IoT ecosystem defines the purposes and intelligent actions of the Internet of Things in Biomedical Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817356-5.00012-7 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Communication Data information
Ecosystem
Internet of Things (IoT) Intelligence
Action
Connectivity
Sensors/ devices
FIG. 9.1 Different features of IoT.
IoT overall, not only in just a few technological parts but in all the community and context of the Internet. Hence the IoT can be defined through these different characteristics and features. Implementing the IoT through different technologies can provide many benefits to organizations. It can change the overall workplace with an increase in job opportunities, digital literacy, and data analysis. It can also increase workflow safety. The information collected from sensors in the IoT can be used to monitor confined and hazardous places and processes, which can minimize danger to humans or the environment, and the data can bring about better understanding of past events and mitigate future risks. The IoT can decrease the time required to collect, transform, analyze, and process the data collected as well as increase productivity. Also, organizations can benefit from the IoT by tracking behavior using real-time marketing strategies. The feedback and usage data collected from users provide guidelines for continuous improvements and create new business opportunities. Employee efficiency and productivity is improved by tracking people and processes and by tracing injuries, illness, absence, and incidents, providing the assistance needed for rootcause analysis, identifying any problems and their causes and finding appropriate solutions. Recently the IoT has been widely adopted in the life sciences field. Many subfields such as home monitoring tools, wearable devices, and more recently mobile healthcare applications have gradually adopted the IoT. With real-time data collected from networked sensors, information generated from these data can be used for
9.1 Introduction
improving the precision, speed, and planning of these devices. The devices thus allow tracking, monitoring, and management to provide better judgments and to reduce the risks of errors. Because of this, the IoT has now made its way into healthcare, health monitoring, patient care, drug science, and life science. It is also playing a role in the pharma industry, especially in the drug value chain from drug invention, development, manufacture, sales, and marketing up to patient consumption. The IoT has been used at every level, from research and development to the marketing of products up to patient engagements. It has helped companies improve their production lines and supply chains, promote their marketing strategies and detect their pros and cons along with the effectiveness of their research and development. The goal has been to diagnose, treat, and prevent patient illness with reduced operational costs, achieving greater efficiency. This digital technology has been a revolutionizing method in diagnosis, monitoring patient care, preventing disease, and improving treatment methods. The use of the IoT by medical institutions and medical personnel has been growing in recent times. The IoT has been applied in many fields and many others still show great potential for its implementation to solve ongoing problems. It can and has been used in smart cities to monitor the effects on buildings, bridges, or monuments of vibration, earthquakes, overloading, etc. It can be used to control and manage traffic, parking, accidents, and streetlights. Studies have been made to implement the IoT in home automation, where home appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, and security systems can be controlled remotely through mobile devices. This can save time, energy, and money and can prevent theft and other security issues. The IoT has also found its application in smart environments for detecting pollution and natural calamities. With the development of the IoT advancing with each passing day, factors such as data security, privacy and integrity concerns, high infrastructure development cost, and finite technical expertise in these areas have been some major issues to retard the speed of its growth. Despite the challenges, various types of IoT applications have emerged. Manufacturing, retail trade, information and finance, and other industries have so far been at the top in terms of value at stake. But with its major growth and large investment and scope, the healthcare industry shows a great potential for the future. Table 9.1 [1, 2] shows the projected evolution of foundational IoT technology in areas such as networking, software, hardware, and data. The concept is shifting toward self-learning and self-repairing networks. With communications technology allowing more flexibility toward device-device communications, the evolution is toward more context-aware networks. In software and algorithms, the focus is shifting toward goal-oriented, distributed intelligence, problem solving, and things-to-things collaboration environments, which are required to enhance effective communication. Hardware has also been one of the key elements in the IoT. From RFID tags to sensors built into mobile devices in the early days, the focus has now shifted more toward biochemical smart sensors and tiny sensors with possibilities for nanotechnology and new materials. Also, data collected from the devices have been a key asset in IoT for information generation. These data need to be
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Table 9.1 Evolution of Key IoT Technologies. Before 2010
2010–15
2015–20
Beyond 2020
Communication technology
• RFID, UWB, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth, ZigBee, RuBee, ISA 100, WIrelessHart, 6LowWPAN
• Unified protocol over wide spectrum
• Sensor networks
• Network context awareness
• Network cognition • Self-learning, selfrepairing network
Software and algorithms
• Relational database Integration • IoT-oriented RDBMS eventbased platforms • Sensor middleware • Sensor networks middleware • Proximity/Localization algorithms • RFID tags and some sensors • Sensor built into mobile devices • NFC in mobile phones • Smaller and cheaper MEMs technology • Serial data processing • Parallel data processing • Quality of services
Ultra-low power chip sets On-chip antennas Millimeter wave single chips Ultra-low power single-chip radios Ultra-low power system on chip Self-aware and self-organizing networks Sensor network location transparency Delay-tolerant networks Storage network and power network Hybrid networking technologies Large-scale, open semantic software modules • Composable algorithms • Next generation IoT-based social software • Next generation IoT-based enterprise applications
• Wide spectrum and spectrum-aware protocols
Network technology
• • • • • • • • • • •
• Goal-oriented software • Distributed intelligence, problem solving • Thing-to-things collaboration environments
• User-oriented software • The invisible IoT • Easy-to-deploy IoT software • Things-to- humans collaboration • IoT 4 All
• Multiprotocol, multistandards readers • More sensor and actuators • Secure, low-cost tags (e.g., silent tags)
• Smart sensors (biochemical) • More sensors and actuators (tiny sensors)
• Nanotechnology and new materials
• Energy, frequency spectrum-aware data processing • Data processing context adaptable
• Context-aware data processing and data responses
• Cognitive processing and optimization
Hardware
Data processing
Data from H. Sundmaeker, P. Guillemin, P. Friess, S. Woelfflé, Vision and Challenges for Realizing the Internet of Things, Clust. Eur. Res. Proj. Internet Things, Eur. Commission, 2010, p. 74.
9.2 Background/related work
analyzed and processed in real time, so data processing methods need to be upgraded and smarter in order to work in real time. More context-aware data processing and data responses are being developed for processing big data in the IoT.
9.2 Background/Related Work The IoT has become popular in many different fields, which have implemented it for different purposes and objectives. Fig. 9.2 shows some of the different fields where implementation of the IoT and development of smart devices have been much anticipated. The IoT has been widely used for wearable devices. In one study [3], a multiple case study was conducted to unfold a general business model that shows the influence of people in the wearable industry. Also in Ref. [4], the author describes the building blocks of wearable IoT (WIoT), including wearable sensors, Internet-connected gateways, and cloud and big data support, which the author has stated are key to future success in healthcare domain applications. In Ref. [5], the author has provided a review of wearable technology in the mining industry, where it is used for dust monitoring, supply chain management, and safety monitoring, and for outdoor environments, where the cameras in most cases are useful tools for site
Wearables
IoT in healthcare
Smart home IoT in poultry and farming Connected cars
Internet of Things(IoT)
Energy engagement
Industrial internet Smart retail
Smart cities
FIG. 9.2 Application of the IoT.
IoT in agriculture
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supervision and process control. A new concept of wearables along with the Internet of Everything (IoE) is presented [6], which is a combination of IoT, wearables, and the Internet of People (IoP). They have focused on the opportunities and challenges that are being created for organizations, governments, and every individual due to the flow of the IoE. Smart homes have been another key area of IoT applications. Home environment devices, such as lighting, home appliances, computers, security, and the camera, can be controlled and monitored remotely, as they will be connected to the Internet. In Ref. [7], the author has used Frugal Labs IoT Platform (FLIP) for building an IoTenabled smart home. With the increase in home automation and the use of sensors in the smart home, privacy has been a big issue in IoT. In this paper [8], the author has analyzed some key features to be added for a trusted smart home system. A smart home gateway architecture has been proposed, which is supported by web services for an automatic device and network configuration and automatic system update to solve the problem of security of the network, which is caused by installation and configuration to implement effective security policies. Another key application of the IoT has been in connected cars. Implementation of the IoT to connect cars is at least part of the solution to problems of congestion, lack of parking spaces, and more crowded cities. In Ref. [9], the challenges of wireless connections between the vehicle-sensor, vehicle-vehicle, vehicle-internet, and vehicle-road are in combatting the harsh communication environment around the vehicle. Also in Ref. [10], the author proposed the concept of a home IoTconnected vehicle with a voice-based virtual personal assistant. They have shown that combining sequential repetitive tasks into one and executing the essential task automatically with authorized permission will allow users to gain trust in the remote execution of tasks. Some of the other studies include development of a new smart queue system and its implementation in medical centers [11]. This software was built by using different programming languages, such as PHP, MYSQL database, and cloud-based storage. This system implements a queue system for reservations using both online and offline methods. Other technology has also been applied, such as in Ref. [12]. Researchers have used the ZigBee mesh protocol to develop an in-hospital healthcare system that can monitor the physiological parameters of the patient in the hospital. This has helped to minimize the total power consumption, increase the quality of care of the patient by regular monitoring, and reduce hospital costs. Also, recent works utilizing cloud technologies for data storage have been published, showing that the cloud is the best means to store and organize big data in the healthcare system [13]. In Ref. [14], the author introduces the application of IoT in the medical system with telemedicine, in clinical care and remote real-time ECG monitoring. In Ref. [15], the authors describe the importance of IoT technology in the roadmap of a smart city. They have suggested comprehensive demonstration sites and dataoriented smart city infrastructure to evaluate and verify the efficiency, economic feasibility, and influencing effects of developing IoT technologies and suggested services. The application of the IoT also includes identifying diseases in their early
9.3 Sensors used in IoT
state so that the outbreak of chronic diseases can be better controlled. In Ref. [16], an IoT and fog-based healthcare system have been proposed to identify and control the Chikungunya virus (CHV). Emergency and warning alerts are also generated to alert healthcare personnel and the government to control the outbreak of this virus in infected areas. Hence with the help of IoT sensors, fog computing, mobile technology, cloud computing and the Internet, fast spreading diseases such as CHV can be monitored, identified, and controlled early. In Ref. [10], wireless sensors and a mobile system network were combined to manage and remotely and automatically monitor environmental factors such as temperature, light intensity, ammonia gas, and food valve of a poultry farm. The smart farm provides real-time current information of the farm to the owner that can be monitored from smartphones. This reduces the cost, time, and effort and increases the quality and quantity of poultry farming. Similarly, in Ref. [17], a wireless sensor network is used in a poultry farm monitoring system to measure the temperature and humidity values. The data collected from these sensors are uploaded online and can be accessed using a web analysis application. This study has provided an online monitoring system to test the feasibility and reliability of poultry farm system. Other technologies such as Zigbee [18], a mobile system network [19], have also been implemented for advanced automatic high-tech poultry farming. This shows that the implementation of IoT sensors and data analysis can benefit in the monitoring and developing of our daily real-life agriculture industry. In Ref. [20], a detailed study has been presented of monitoring the heart rate of a football player during a football match to detect possible heart problems or possible injuries along with sudden death. The author has proposed a distributed framework based on IoT for monitoring biomedical signals from players where intensive data acquisition and high processing is a necessity.
9.3 Sensors Used in IoT Sensors have been a key element in the IoT industry. Sensors are used to collect data for any change in the physical device. Sensors detect a change in the environment, measure a physical phenomenon such as temperature or pressure, and transform it into an electrical signal. Different sensors have been used for different applications. The sensors can be simple, such as a temperature or pressure sensor, or more complex sensors that report a multiple data stream instantaneously. With the IoT devices moving toward smarter and more advanced automation, the need of the sensors to have more smart features to be able to solve modern-day automation challenges has been growing. These sensors should be smart enough and capable of communicating with each other and with other remote devices as well. The sensors should be more accurate and precise, and have low power consumption, small size, and low cost. Many IoT applications in home automation, wearables, industry, and healthcare have used advanced sensors to make their systems more advanced and smarter in their automation. Some of the sensors, their types, and application areas are listed in Table 9.2.
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Table 9.2 List of Sensors Used in the IoT. Type
Sensors
Application
Environment sensors
Smoke sensor
Construction site, industrial units, manufacturing industry, etc. Audio monitoring, smart cities, smart buildings, etc. Thermostats, weather-related IoT devices Power plant, industry, fire alarm system Power plant industry Smart home Boilers, water system, touchscreen devices, weather monitoring devices, automotive industry, etc. Pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, thermostats, etc. Healthcare industry, wearable
Sound sensor Humidity sensor Flame sensor Fume sensor Light sensor Piezo/pressure sensor
Temperature sensor Biosensors
Position and location tracking sensors
Communication modules
Other sensors
Electrocardiogram heart monitoring sensor Finger chip heart rate sensor GPS Altimeter Magnetometer Accelerometer, gyroscope Proximity sensors/ ultrasonic sensor Bluetooth module RFID module Wi-Fi ZigBee Arduino Uno Raspberry Pi Motion sensor Optical sensor
Speed sensor Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) Infrared sensor Image sensor
Vehicle tracking system, smart care, wearable Medical application, weather monitoring, etc. Medical and biomedical application Pedometers, antitheft devices, leveling Smart car, food industry, machine tools, parking and museums, etc. Connect device to the internet
Used for interaction between sensors Smart home Telecom, elevators, construction, healthcare, safety systems, mining operations, oil refineries, chemical plants, etc. Smart car Healthcare, health monitoring, etc. Military applications, electronics, chemical and healthcare industries Healthcare, transportation, security systems, etc.
9.4 Applications in life sciences
Many large and influential technology firms including Alphabet, Apple, Dell EMC, General Electric, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Philips, Samsung, and SAP have entered the IoT space in a big way and are hoping to make things happen quickly. They have invested heavily in this field and major research work is ongoing. Many IoT start-up companies in the healthcare field have appeared in recent years. They are working on finding new applications to improve the diagnosing, monitoring, and management of patients and treatment within the healthcare system. Fig. 9.3 shows the mapping of the private start-up IoT companies that are operating in the healthcare sectors into different applications, such as infant monitoring, fitness wearables, biometrics sensors, etc. Among the many categories, start-up companies such as Augmedix and Obaa are working on wearables like smart glass for charting. Simplifeye uses the Apple Watch for doctors to track patient visits and access EMRs. Startups such as Awarepoint emphasize IoT sensors for tracking the location of a patient and medical equipment and AdhereTech tracks medicine adherence. Companies such as EarlySense and Monica Healthcare have focused on clinical and hospital settings based on connected biometric sensors. IoT devices such as clinical grade wearables are being developed by Quanttus and MC10, and an auto refractor has been developed by Eyenetra, a cessation tracker by Chrono Therapeutics, a smart thermometer made by Kinsa, ECG by Qardio AliveCor, and a fitness tracker wearable by Lumo and OMSignal. There are some companies such as Hello and Beddit who are working on sleep tracking and Owlet and Sproutling are working on wearable technology that tracks infants’ movements and vitals. Some of the real-life applications in progress in IoT and the companies that are involved in those fields are listed in Table 9.3.
9.4 Applications in Life Sciences In the field of life sciences, integration of IoT is the latest way to improve patient health and advanced medicine. It has been a leading source of information, obtained from the data collected from the networked sensors. IoT has been applied in a variety of ways, from using sensors in machines to facilitate production to improve the reliability and responsiveness of the supply chain. Fig. 9.4 [21] shows the approach of using IoT in healthcare for sharing information. The complete information about a certain patient, which is stored in multiple locations such as a hospital, laboratories, or with a general practitioner, can be gathered through health information exchange using IoT and be displayed on an electronic device when needed. This will reduce the necessity for this to be communicated with the central server for information exchange. IoT can also be used to detect any failure in the machine in the production process. It is applied to collect machine sensor data, which can be used in the research and development department to improve the design and quality of the devices. Devices such as wearables, motion sensors, and facial recognition have been used to precisely measure the patient’s health condition and to adapt the prescribed therapies using the patient’s exact diagnosis. Some of the IoT-based smart devices that have been implemented in the life sciences are listed.
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FIG. 9.3 List of private IoT companies operating in the healthcare sector. Source: cbinsights.
9.4 Applications in life sciences
Table 9.3 List of Companies Working on IoT Applications in Different Fields. Fields
Companies
Smart home Wearables Connected cars
Nest, Ecobee, Ring, August Google, Samsung Tesla, BMW, Apple, Google
Nonliving things linked to living things
Emergency unit HLT server
RFID tags RFID reader
Intelligent wheelchair Companion robot
Home appliances
Glucose tester
Laboratory Mobile devices
Sensors
Internet of things
Public authority
Non HL7 information system
Hospital Hospital
HLT server
Air quality monitoring station
General practitioner
Wheater station
FIG. 9.4 An IoT approach to healthcare.
9.4.1 Organ-on-a-Chip The advent of organs-on-chips has been heralded as a new tool with great potential for human biological research. Researchers have developed microfluidic culture devices that recapitulate the microarchitecture and function of human organs. They have created some working models of human organs, including liver, lung, intestine, kidney, skin, bone marrow, blood-brain barriers, and even the female reproductive system. These microchips facilitate understanding of the functions of living human organs and help to improve research and development productivity, reduce data reporting
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time and cost, and increase drug efficiency. The main objective is to use this new technology for personalized medicine and for modeling disease and facilitating drug development, replacing the traditional animal testing. Some of the biosensors that are being used in organ-on-a-chip platforms are sensors for detection of metabolism products, physical parameters, monitoring cell fate, cell viability, single cell analysis, cell differentiation analysis, cell sorting, and cell separation [22].
9.4.2 Chip in a Pill The IoT has been applied in the form of a digital drug called chip-in-a-pill technology. A drug with a digital ingestion tracking system and cameras is used to send information from inside the body, such as organ images, to an adhesive patch. These data can also be sent to doctors’ offices, smartwatches, wearable devices, or smartphone apps, where they can be used for diagnosis and to study the drug efficiency and treatment procedures. These data are also used to track drug use, where the physician is alerted to any missed doses. This has been used with drugs to treat diseases such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental illness. Recently the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world’s first digital drug manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., with the help of Silicon Valley’s Proteus Digital Health Inc. It is used to treat bipolar disorder and other mental health problems [1].
9.4.3 Google Glass Google Glass, a brand of “smart glasses,” has been used recently to record visual information of a patient during their conversation with a medical professional. Thus the physician or the medical personnel do not have to keep a record of the patient while examining them, since the device they are wearing will store it for them. This reduces the amount of time spent on patient recordkeeping and administrative work and also reduces the total amount of time spent on each patient. Also, using Google Glass, medical personnel can access training videos, instructions, and share perspectives with specialists around the world. The data collected from these devices can be used for further analysis and study proposals. Many healthcare centers are adopting the use of smart glasses in their primary healthcare and other clinic-based specialties.
9.4.4 iBeacons iBeacon is a protocol developed by Apple and used in a number of small BLE devices from different manufacturers; these devices broadcast a near-constant radio signal to smart devices, providing information about the patient and their location. These devices are also used to keep track of expensive equipment and assets in the hospitals. With digital access to these devices, users can find not only the patient but also the hospital staff and doctors’ locations and other information quickly. In paper [23], among many iBeacon applications, a home healthcare app has been suggested to explore how these applications can support homecare personnel while performing
9.4 Applications in life sciences
routine checkups and healthcare activities with patients in their homes. Not only for the patient, iBeacon technology has also found application in other healthcare fields, such as using the beacons along with other devices to assist blind people and as an assistive tool for indoor navigation.
9.4.5 Sensors in Drug Delivery Devices Sensors are attached in drug delivery devices to monitor drug dosage and keep track of the patient’s medication. This is helpful for those patients whose illness requires continuous monitoring for efficient intervention. It equips the healthcare providers and patient with a tool to acquire, analyze, and monitor medication usage data. From chewing leaves and roots of medicinal plants generations ago, drug evolution has brought us to a sophisticated drug delivery system for pills, syrups, capsules, tablets, elixirs, solutions, extracts, and many other types of drugs, making drug delivery more consistent and uniform. Some of the factors that need to be considered for controlled drug delivery are drug property, route of administration, nature of the delivery vehicle, mechanism of drug release, the ability of targeting, and biocompatibility [13].
9.4.6 Digital and 3D Printed Pills When a person consumes a pill with a chip, the chip can transmit information about the inner body of the person to a mobile device. The photos taken by the chips can give the specialist an insight into the inner functions of the organs and the effect of the drugs on the inner part of the human body. These devices can also transmit data to a mobile application or a wearable device or to a specialist for further analysis and diagnosis. Also, healthcare authorities can send instructions to the 3D printer to print the medicine from their homes by using some devices and sensors for the proper patient medication dosage.
9.4.7 Automatic Smart Wheelchairs Smart wheelchairs have built-in computers, sensors, and assistive technology, whose functions and operations are managed by the IoT. In Ref. [24], a state-of-the-art overview of the most researched areas of smart wheelchairs and their applications is presented. The integration of the IoT in smart wheelchairs will help medical personnel to gather information from the patient and to track the patient’s condition and progress without extra office visits. It can provide information about the patient’s blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen saturation, and the physical position of the patient.
9.4.8 Wearables and Wristbands Wristbands are used to measure a person’s heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, number of steps, oxygen level, and many more variables. Usually, the wristbands include plastic bands with a flexible circuit board and a biosensor with
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electrodes embedded inside. The electrical signals generated from the sensors are digitized by microcontroller chips and the information is transmitted wirelessly through Bluetooth. The data is transmitted to an Android or iPhone mobile application, where it can be displayed, stored, and analyzed. This information provides the user’s physical health conditions, which can be sent to medical personnel for further monitoring and analyzing of the health condition of the user/patients remotely. This also allows tracking of the daily activities of users. Also, in hospitals, it is used to keep track of the patient general information like ID, medication, allergies, and medical records. The practice of color-coded wristbands is being implemented for patient safety, such as red for allergy and yellow for fall risk, helping to reduce confusion and improving prescriptions and patient safety. Following are some of the specific commercial products developed that have implemented IoT. I. Contact lenses that monitor glucose levels The smart contact lens has been one of the most anticipated IoT devices. The smart lens is like a regular contact lens but with a sensor able to measure and track blood glucose levels. It can also be able to assist those having eye problems. The lens has a microchip that sends data on the glucose level from the user’s tears to its smartphone app. A biosensing contact lens, introduced by a team of researchers affiliated with UNIST, has built-in pliable, transparent electronics with stretchable electrodes. The information, in the form of electrical signals, is collected and transmitted from the glucose sensor to the LED through the antenna contained in the contact lens, wirelessly and in real time. According to researchers [25], the smart contact lens provides a platform for wireless, continuous, and noninvasive monitoring of physiological condition as well as the detection of biomarkers associated with ocular and other diseases. II. Smart pills that monitor medication adherence and response Smart pills contain an ingestible sensor, about 1 mm square made of silicon and food materials, delivered inside a small, inactive tablet taken along with the prescribed medication; it is activated after it comes in contact with the stomach. The wearable patch receives information from the ingestible sensor, including dose timing, heart rate, activity, and skin temperature, among other things, and sends the information to the application via Bluetooth so it can be accessed by health personnel, family members, or the user. The main objective of this is to improve medication adherence and measure medication effects in real time. This can also be used in combination with other technology, such as smart pill containers, proximity sensing, and vision systems to improve medication adherence during patient treatment [26]. III. Hearing device A smartphone-connected hearing-aid device with voice search, RFID sensors, and biometric analytics is another recent smart healthcare product. Its features include the ability to remember sound preference based on the surroundings and location and to connect to Bluetooth and other devices to stream the sound directly into the hearing aid without the need for headphones. It also includes voice-enabled personal assistance, to help with administrative tasks, morning routines such as weather
9.5 Benefits of IoT in life sciences
updates, coffee brewing, switching lights on, etc. These devices can help people with hearing disabilities to improve their hearing and is having a positive influence on the way hearing instruments are perceived. IV. Heart rate monitor patch With increases in heart disease and heart attacks, continuous heart rate monitoring systems have become important tools. A heart rate monitor patch records heart rate data, which is later sent to and analyzed by medical personnel. The most effective form of treatment can then be prescribed by the doctor based on the data recorded. Commercial products such as Zio by iRhythm can report on the patient’s heart rhythm along with daily and total atrial fibrillation and ectopy burden, symptom/ rhythm correlation, most relevant heart rhythm strips, heart rate trends, preliminary interpretation and key findings, and premature ventricular contraction (PVC) burden and morphologies. Also a study [27] has been made to measure heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, posture, steps, and falls using a wireless Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) patch sensor with two electrocardiography (ECG) electrodes, a microcontroller, triaxial accelerometer, and BLE transceiver. V. Wristband to monitor heartbeat, blood pressure, calories Wristbands, commonly known as fitness trackers or smartwatches, can help with meeting fitness goals, tracking progress, and planning. These wearable devices have lots of different features and functions and can also synchronize with other devices and mobile applications. They can send phone notifications and allow the user to check emails. Their primary use is to track, monitor, and store data on cardiovascular exertion, cross training, biking, heart rate, number of steps, sleep quality, blood pressure, and calories burned in a day. Many different brands are available with differing features, sizes, shapes, colors, and prices. They connect via Bluetooth to Android or iOS devices for data and information transfer. VI. Insole sensor that measures weight bearing, balance, and temperature These smart insoles can be placed in any pair of shoes to measure weightbearing, balance, acceleration, and foot temperature. Studies have been made of pressure insoles with inertial measurement units (IMUs), to demonstrate that they can be used as a wearable alternative for objective quantification of gait and dynamic balance measures [28]. Also, instrumented shoe insoles have been designed with force-sensing resistors and pressure sensors to measure the weight of a person during their daily activities [29]. In the commercial market, Moticon’s OpenGo sensor insoles can measure different features like weightbearing or foot temperature. They incorporate pressure sensors, accelerometer, temperature sensor, and integrated storage to monitor a patient continuously.
9.5 Benefits of IoT in Life Sciences The IoT has provided some remarkable advancements in the life sciences industry. With the IoT, communication between devices and device-to-human is possible, and automation and control can be developed through these continuous connections.
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The advances in smart devices used in healthcare have proven beneficial to patients, medical personnel, manufacturing companies, and the healthcare industry in general. With data collected from the sensors of smart devices, the IoT has been able to boost performance in diagnosing diseases, monitoring patient conditions, developing preventive measures, developing new treatments, and inventing new and more powerful drugs. It has also led to improvements in the entire pharma industry as well as the healthcare chain. The big data collected from the sensors of smart devices in real time and the resulting diagnoses have proven beneficial for research and development units to develop new drugs and facilitate improved treatment and efficiency. Having more information has helped in decision making, making it easier, faster, and more effective. This has also greatly reduced the operational costs through faster screening. Optimal utilization of energy and resources can be achieved by using IoT devices kept under surveillance and sending alerts of possible breakdowns or damage to a system. Reporting on parameters such as temperature, logistics monitoring, or warehousing can reduce costs in the supply chain, which directly reduces the total cost of the drugs. Also, by analyzing and monitoring the data collected from sensors, better marketing strategies and quality products can be developed to increase sales. With all these advancements, the patient is benefited as the end user. Improvements in the life sciences industry have improved healthcare equipment and methods, resulting in better diagnosis of disease, treatment procedures, drug efficiency, and patient healthcare. All this increases the comfort of patients and improves the quality of their daily lives. Some of the key benefits of the IoT in the life sciences industry are discussed in the following sections.
9.5.1 Advanced Equipment With the inclusion of more sophisticated sensors and smart devices, the IoT has provided more advanced equipment that can be used for early diagnosis of diseases and can provide significant assistance for specialists in their treatment. With chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or pulmonary disease, continuous monitoring makes a huge difference in both prevention and cure. Also, with the decreasing costs of microchips and increasing efforts to make devices more advanced and smarter, the automation systems to manage the big data collected from smart sensors will be upgraded alongside.
9.5.2 Advanced Drugs With the advent of smart devices such as organs-on-chips and pills with chips, the IoT has been able to help with better understanding the effects of drugs on the human body, which results in the improvement of these drugs. After the drugs are dispensed inside the human body, the body’s responses can be continuously monitored using the IoT. This has helped researchers to know better how their medication works and has assisted them in improving the efficiency of the drugs.
9.6 Challenges of IoT in life sciences
9.5.3 User-Friendly Devices With the development of the IoT, wearable devices and blood pressure monitoring systems have allowed patients to monitor their own health without the help of medical personnel. With the help of wearable devices on their wrist or elbow, they can measure their own body temperature, heart rate, oxygen level, blood pressure, glucose level, and many other parameters. Also, these data can be sent to medical personnel and the patient can receive feedback almost immediately, which can prove beneficial in critical situations.
9.5.4 Assets for Research and Development Data collected through different sensors and actuators from IoT devices have proven to be a great asset for analyzing and monitoring factors affecting the healthcare industry. Also, with devices such as organ-on-a-chip, which provides a working model of the human body, the effect of new drugs can be monitored without traditional animal testing. This technology has reduced the sacrifice of animal lives for drug discovery and testing and is playing a crucial role in research. It has also increased productivity and has highly facilitated drug discovery and development.
9.5.5 Minimize Cost IoT in life sciences has reduced the amount of money needed to invent and test the effectiveness of drugs. The numerous trials and animal testing needed are very expensive and are risky investments, as only good test results will allow a drug to be successful. With the development of IoT devices, the time and cost of continuous multistage testing and monitoring can be decreased. Also, with a proper supply chain, aid by the IoT, minimizing the cost of transportation of the drugs can also lower the operational costs, which will lower the actual cost of the drug for end users.
9.6 Challenges of IoT in Life Sciences With every new technology, many challenges and issues arise that need to be tackled for ultimate success to be achieved. With much more access to consumer data, health organizations face significant challenges in managing, interpreting, and protecting patient data. As big data comes in, health systems must have the infrastructure, resources, and processes to extract the necessary information from it. Also, with cyberattacks on almost every network, the companies must invest heavily in protecting their networks. Following is a list of some of the more prominent challenges that the IoT faces in the life sciences field. Also, with increases in customer expectations, the continuous need to upgrade hardware and devices to make them smarter and more autonomous has been a big challenge for the IoT. Some of the other challenges for IoT healthcare services are power consumption, storage limitations, mobility, scalability, communication media, dynamic networks, and dynamic security updates. Some of the major challenges of IoT in life sciences are discussed in the following sections.
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9.6.1 Data Security and Privacy One of the most prominent challenges for the IoT is data security and privacy. With data pouring from sensor to sensor and device to device in real time, protecting these huge amounts of data from cybercriminals has been a difficult problem. These data can be hacked and the privacy and personal health information (PHI) of not only the patient but also of the doctors and other health personnel can be compromised. This information can be misused in a number of ways, such as fraudulent identification, illegal drug purchases, false insurance claims, etc. Data related to critical equipment and company information can be hacked as well, and frequent announcements of security breaches may need to be made, which can lead to loss of confidence in the organization and the health system. Such situations need to be stopped in advance by proper security. Some of the main security requirements for IoT-based healthcare are confidentiality, integrity, authentication, availability, fault tolerance, and data freshness.
9.6.2 Integration/Compatibility: Multiple Devices and Protocols With so many devices connected with each other and a lack of common communication protocols and standard, integration of multiple devices can be a big challenge for IoT in the life sciences. Differences in communication protocols and standards of so many connected devices can delay data aggregation and can complicate the communication between these devices. This complication in the process can have adverse effects on the overall performance and scalability of IoT in the life sciences. Also, although most experts believe in the necessity of IoT regulation, lack of authorship for setting up such regulations has resulted in the failure to formulate any clear standards or guidelines for the users to follow.
9.6.3 Data Overload and Connectivity With so much data collected from so many devices, analyzing, managing, and deriving insights from it require a great deal of effort and many specialists. Doctors are finding it difficult to derive the understanding they need, which has affected their decision making. And the addition of new smart devices in healthcare seemingly every day brings the added problems of more data, upgrading of resources, adding new infrastructure, and finding qualified personnel. Also, with so many devices connected, after some time users are likely to experience significant bottlenecks in IoT connectivity, efficiency, and overall performance, using the existing connectivity technology of centralized, server/client paradigms to authenticate, authorize, and connect different nodes in a network. New systems to handle information sharing of such a large amount of data will require large investments of both money and time, to maintain cloud servers that are able to share information with the various servers, workstations, and systems.
References
9.7 Conclusion With the increasing use of IoT devices and sensors in the life sciences to remotely manage, control, track, and monitor healthcare elements, productivity has increased and errors are minimized. By providing real-time information collected from users, the quality of products and services will continue to be improved. Analysis of these data can be used for decision making, along with quality upgrading of the products. With many devices still coming into the network on a regular basis, the big data collected from these devices can provide many benefits. However, it will be a challenge to extract the required information from these enormous amounts of data. To manage such big data, the set-up and assembling of resources, infrastructure, and expert manpower will be a difficult task. The accumulated data will include sensitive information and thus concerns over data security, privacy, transfer and regulatory compliance also arise. To overcome these security problems, companies can use third-party cloud computing solutions to some extent. The IoT also serves various purposes across the value chain of products, as it transfers data from patients to home, home to HCP, and from home to hospitals as well as to medical personnel. These data can be used in research and development centers to improve device performance. Key benefits that can be perceived from the IoT are an increase in workforce productivity, cost savings, opportunity of new business models, and better collaboration with colleagues and patients. Wearables, IoTenabled biosensors, and robots for medication and supplies delivery in hospitals are some areas where the IoT will play a major role. Also, in future data handling techniques such as machine learning can be used for big data analysis and classification in life sciences.
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