Transforming Healthcare Data into Actionable Information

Also, check out the first part of this series, "Internet of Things and the Humanization of Healthcare Technology."

The most impactful contribution the Internet of Things (IoT) can offer healthcare is the potential to produce actionable analytics, something healthcare has long been in need of. Per the Verizon’s State of the Market: The Internet of Things 2015 report, “Analytics is at the heart of IoT. The data gathered can feed near real-time business intelligence systems that help make more informed decisions quickly.”

Lea M. Sims, Senior Healthcare Marketing Strategist, Verizon Enterprise Solutions

Capturing data is not an issue for healthcare, and with the right security measures, transmitting that data is also not an issue for healthcare. Transforming that data into useable information continues to be the challenge.

Not long ago, I spoke with an executive of a hospital system that has a large network of home healthcare agencies. Their patients are using remote monitoring devices to track treatment compliance measures, like vitals and glucose, but when I asked what they were doing with the data captured from those devices, the executive was stymied.

He admitted that he didn’t think they were using that data — it was being captured and transmitted to a server “somewhere” and they had yet to figure out what to do with it all.

That’s why sensing and reporting alone will not make IoT a game-changer for healthcare. The power of IoT lies in the seamless integration of aware-autonomous-actionable.

The device that can capture that data, report it automatically over a secure connection to a central location, and extrapolate the data to report meaningful and actionable information will change the entire landscape of healthcare.

The Road Ahead – A Promising Landscape

There is still a great bit of work to be done in the area of interoperability standards. There are many specialized technologies that will require standardization in order to support the kind of interoperability IoT can deliver.

The FDA has continued to recognize standards that support medical device interoperability. Verizon has contributed to the work of IEEE 11073 to set standards for medical-device communication. Gaps in medical-device interoperability have been cited as a significant cost factor for healthcare — greater than $30 billion annually according to a 2013 PricewaterhouseCoopers study.

Standards to support seamless communication between these emerging technologies will be critical to stitching it all together under the umbrella of the Internet of Things.

Beyond that, attention to the development of humanized, user-centric technologies — developed to the interoperability standards outlined above — will ultimately require that they are developed on the backbone of fast and reliable connectivity, seamless mobility, secure information exchange, all things that Verizon can support and add value to in the IoT space.