**4. IoT scenario in the healthcare industry**

Using IoT can improve and modify the delivered healthcare services in the following aspects:


Point-of-care tests can be optimised by reducing the time of diagnosis, which in turn can be achieved by reducing the requirements for sending samples to be tested. For example, automatic testing by using blood pressure cuffs and digital thermometers can help physicians review the history of their patients while performing the necessary measurements. Among its practical advantages, IoT can encourage the development of smart systems that support and improve biomedical and healthcare processes. Monitoring the physiological parameters of patients in real time can also facilitate the early detection of clinical deterioration, automatic people identification and tracking by using biomedical devices in smart hospitals and monitoring drug-patient associations [40].

**Figure 5** illustrates the IoT scenario in smart hospitals. A patient with an emergency case is given a wearable device that detects the nearest ED that offers the required services. Upon being notified of an emergency case, the ED dispatches an ambulance to the location of the patient and delivers the necessary care services.

**49**

*IOT Service Utilisation in Healthcare*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86014*

**5. Healthcare system challenges**

the status of their patients quickly, easily and effectively.

to HIE adoption have been identified from the literature:

security and privacy must be considered during its application [41].

Upon its arrival, the ambulance links the bio-bank of patient information to a secure cloud that stores the EHRs, laboratory test results and medical and prescription histories of the patient. This process can help health practitioners understand

IoT in HIE systems is mostly designed to store, enter, receive and exchange health information. This system increases the number of devices and enhances the mobility of information to support health professionals in their consultations. Despite the benefits of using IoT in hospitals, several challenges related to availability, reliability, mobility, performance, management scalability, interoperability,

Collecting and exchanging health information have become challenging due to the increasing population and demands for health services. These challenges can hinder the successful adoption of HIE. The following issues and challenges related

• Unified patients' data: this challenge refers to the combination of patient's data that are obtained from EHR systems that are being operated by healthcare providers (e.g. aged care providers, hospitals and healthcare specialists) for the purpose of sharing information. The unification of patient data provides excellent opportunities in continuing care, improving care quality and analys-

• Teamwork of care: teamwork refers to collaboration among healthcare practitioners with the shared aim of exchanging information [42]. The communication deficiency among groups of healthcare professionals, departments or clinics has been identified as the main driver of critical safety incidents in tertiary care clinics. However, with the growing complexity of healthcare provision, the avail-

the healthcare industry. Therefore, teamwork places less effort in promoting the availability of information. A survey of primary care doctors from 10 countries identified the overall communication, coordination of healthcare and teamwork as common challenges in HIE adoption. The lack of integration among primary care, specialty care and hospitals can also put patients at risk and lead to duplicative care, particularly for those patients suffering from complex chronic illnesses [43]. The full potential of teamwork is seldom realised due to training problems and the lack of trust in the reliability of healthcare services. Physicians are also often blamed for the errors that may occur during the provision of these services.

ing and monitoring care service delivery and patient health outcomes.

ability of patient information has been considered highly significant in

• Security and privacy: due to security and privacy concerns [44–46], many physicians and healthcare providers prefer to store patient records on computers or local systems that are not connected to the Internet [47]. Despite the benefits of large-scale HIE, a comparative study of the medical record exchange practices in Australia, Canada Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and the US [48] revealed that Germany lacks a single approach for HIE and that healthcare software companies have achieved minimal success in their development of infrastructures where physicians can exchange clinical data due to security concerns. Similar to other countries, the substantial privacy and security concerns in the UK and the Netherlands have driven the resistance of

healthcare professionals to HIE despite the benefits of this practice.

**Figure 5.** *IoT in the healthcare scenario.*

#### *IOT Service Utilisation in Healthcare DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86014*

*Internet of Things (IoT) for Automated and Smart Applications*

for acute events.

states of patients.

drug-patient associations [40].

services.

1.Relying on sensing-based screening and assessment technologies in home and community environments can reduce the physical pressure on the environment of hospitals and turn this information into an electronic flow of information.

2.Changing the medication process from a reactive model to a proactive and preventative model can significantly minimise the hospital admission expenses

3.Improving the personalisation of healthcare processes allows individuals to monitor and identify their risk factors, seek preventative intervention and treatment and live independently. In this way, personalising healthcare processes has a significant positive impact on the psychological and physiological

4.Improving the management of clinical workloads can allow healthcare systems to effectively prioritise those patients who have the highest need for medical

5.Supporting self-care diagnostic processes for monitoring vital signs and other various measurements can produce data that are shared with physicians either personally or by phone in order for them to make effective diagnoses. These diagnoses can sometimes be automated for simple illnesses, such as flu.

Point-of-care tests can be optimised by reducing the time of diagnosis, which in turn can be achieved by reducing the requirements for sending samples to be tested. For example, automatic testing by using blood pressure cuffs and digital thermometers can help physicians review the history of their patients while performing the necessary measurements. Among its practical advantages, IoT can encourage the development of smart systems that support and improve biomedical and healthcare processes. Monitoring the physiological parameters of patients in real time can also facilitate the early detection of clinical deterioration, automatic people identification and tracking by using biomedical devices in smart hospitals and monitoring

**Figure 5** illustrates the IoT scenario in smart hospitals. A patient with an emergency case is given a wearable device that detects the nearest ED that offers the required services. Upon being notified of an emergency case, the ED dispatches an ambulance to the location of the patient and delivers the necessary care services.

**48**

**Figure 5.**

*IoT in the healthcare scenario.*

Upon its arrival, the ambulance links the bio-bank of patient information to a secure cloud that stores the EHRs, laboratory test results and medical and prescription histories of the patient. This process can help health practitioners understand the status of their patients quickly, easily and effectively.

IoT in HIE systems is mostly designed to store, enter, receive and exchange health information. This system increases the number of devices and enhances the mobility of information to support health professionals in their consultations. Despite the benefits of using IoT in hospitals, several challenges related to availability, reliability, mobility, performance, management scalability, interoperability, security and privacy must be considered during its application [41].
