CDAIT IoT Sensor 09.15.2021

Posted September 15, 2021

Angelina Kim, Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things (CDAIT)  

Health Tech, Digital Health and IoMT

The value of the Internet of Things (IoT) to telehealth and telemedicine has increased significantly during the pandemic. With more people unable to be physically inside hospitals due to the risk of COVID19, and capacity constraints, IoT in telemedicine and telehealth allows doctors to stay in contact with patients and provide care remotely through monitoring medical devices and use of video conferencing software. Specifically of interest is the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).

In the context of COVID-19, IoMT has been especially useful for managing chronic patient care and providing continuous care with the added benefit of providing care at home where patients may be the most comfortable. Its application can also be important for providing continuous care for patients in rural areas where medical and health care may be sparse or harder to come by.

Trends in Telehealth

To roughly gage the increase in importance of telehealth and medicine during the pandemic, it is a useful exercise to review Google Trends, which shows a spike in search results for both “telehealth” and “telemedicine” in March 2020 and a higher sustained horizontal trend in the months after. Furthermore, a Google search of “IoT in telemedicine and healthcare” yields 22,500 hits between January 2020 and September, 2020, as compared to 29,200 hits between January 2021 and September, 2021. This is a significant increase over a comparable search on the terms IoT in telemedicine and healthcare during the comparable January 2019 to September, 2019 period, which yield about 11,100 results.

A similar in increase in relevance can be seen in the more focused academic literature. An all-time search on Google Scholar, a specialized search function of Google focused on academic literature, of “IoT in telehealth” gives around 5,000 search results. Around 1,200 of those are from 2021, and another 1,200 are from 2020. More than two-fifths of the all-time scholarly articles are from the past two years. Similarly, a search in ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s platform for scientific literature, for “IoT in telehealth” yields 270 articles; 99 of which are from 2021, and 78 of which are from 2020. In both Google Scholar and ScienceDirect, 2021 and 2020 have the highest number of published articles for the search terms “telemedicine” and “telehealth.” These numbers are more than double that of previous years.

Policy Impacts of IoMT

As is the case of much innovation in technology, deployment of IoT for telehealth and telemedicine applications has policy implications. As a technology that handles sensitive patient data, robust cybersecurity and data privacy policy is critical for IoMT, internally, on the part of developers, and implementers, as well as within the larger social context, by public sector institutions.  

This is especially true when it comes to governance of data ownership and control. Questions arise such as how are data collected and aggregated, who owns the data and which data do they own? How and to what capacity are companies responsible for the data and how is the data controlled? Many of the technologies used in medical applications are similar to those used in health and wellness application – currently minimally regulated. But as the tech continues to change and be used in different settings, what regulatory regimes are (or might be) applicable in these varied settings?

Current Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) regulations govern electronic protected information and provides some answers to those questions. HIPPA’s Security rule provides standards for the protection of electronic health information. However, the limitations of HIPPA must also be considered in the future of IoMT policy as new technologies continuously change the landscape.

IoT in telemedicine and telehealth also brings to light current limitations within healthcare. IoT and telemedicine allows doctors to provide care across state lines; however, many doctors’ and care providers’ current credentials and certifications may be limited to within state lines. Telemedicine may change the regulations and create more licensure portability. In a similar capacity, IoT and telemedicine necessitate a reevaluation of payments and coverage through insurance and Medicare/Medicaid. Both federal and state programs have already made some changes and allowed telemedicine to be paid as regular in person visits during COVID19. However, as telehealth and telemedicine expand after this pandemic, a permanent change to these policies will be required.

For a deeper dive:

Medicare Telemedicine Health Care Provider Fact Sheet -https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicare-telemedicine-health-care-provider-fact-sheet

HIPPA Security Rule - https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/security/index.html

Javaid, M. & Khan, I.H. (2021). Internet of Things (IoT) enabled healthcare helps to take the challenges of COVID-19 PandemicJ Oral Biol Craniofac Res. 2021, 11(2), 209-214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobcr.2021.01.015

The Future of Healthcare: IoT, Telemedicine, Robots & Artificial Intelligence - https://www.einfochips.com/blog/the-future-of-healthcare-iot-telemedicine-robots-artificial-intelligence/

IoT and the future of remote health care - https://www.perle.com/articles/iot-and-the-future-of-remote-health-care-40190845.shtml 

Is the IoT Allowing Telehealth to Expand Too Quickly? - https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/is-the-iot-allowing-telehealth-to-expand-too-quickly

The Internet of Things: Impact and Implications for Health Care Delivery - https://www.jmir.org/2020/11/e20135/

Health IoT Adoption in the HIPAA Compliance Landscape - https://convergetechmedia.com/health-iot-adoption-in-the-hipaa-compliance-landscape/

Google. (n.d.) Google Trends - Telehealth. Retrieved from https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=telehealth

Google. (n.d.) Google Trends - Telemedicine. Retrieved from https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F04dqyb