The Future Of IoT In Healthcare

The Future of IoT in Healthcare

An Analysis of Emerging Technologies

The Internet of Things (IoT) extends Internet connectivity into physical devices and everyday objects. In healthcare, various IoT technologies generate value, including location and sensing services. These enable facilities to locate and monitor the status of patients, staff, and equipment, resulting in operational efficiencies and improvements in patient care. As new technologies emerge, smart devices with built-in IoT capabilities provide big data for strategic decision-making and optimization of day-to-day operations.

Healthcare IT is constantly evolving, with new technologies, products, and devices continually being evaluated for their potential impact on patients, families, and caregivers. While innovation is important, practicality—such as cost, minimizing disruptions, and ensuring technology meets organizational objectives—remains crucial.

Growth of Indoor Location Services

Over the last decade, spending on Indoor Location Services has grown exponentially to billions of dollars annually and is expected to continue at a CAGR of nearly 43% until 2021. Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) enable numerous healthcare solutions, including:

• ​Staff Locating and Safety
• ​Patient Flow
• ​Infection Prevention/Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring
• ​Asset Tracking/Management
• ​Infant Protection
• ​Wander Management
• ​Wayfinding

Several large healthcare providers have documented significant returns on investment. For example, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reported $2M/year savings from its Asset Management solution, $3.5M in redundant systems cost avoidance, and $2M+/year from increased staff productivity.

These solutions are powered by an ecosystem of badges, tags, and phones, located by infrastructure leveraging various technologies, including infrared (IR), active RFID, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Low Frequency (LF).

RTLS Technology Review

Location-enabling technologies in healthcare can be grouped into two general categories based on the physical parameters of their signals:

• ​Wall Penetrating
• ​Wall Constrained

Wall Penetrating Technologies

Wall penetrating technologies are designed to pass through obstacles such as walls, floors, ceilings, and glass. An example is in-home Wi-Fi, where the signal is not limited to the room with the access point but penetrates in all directions. These technologies can maintain connectivity with devices in adjacent rooms, floors, or even buildings, which is advantageous for sensing the state of a specific device (e.g., Wi-Fi temperature sensors).

However, this strength becomes a weakness when precise location is required. Wall penetrating technologies are most accurate when multiple signals are detected, allowing the network to estimate location via triangulation and trilateration. Regardless of antenna density, these technologies cannot achieve 100% accurate locating to the clinically relevant space (room, bed, bay, etc.), known as Clinical-Grade Locating.

BLE is another wall penetrating technology, operating on the same 2.4 GHz frequency as Wi-Fi. BLE beacons provide zonal level locating but are not precise enough for Clinical-Grade Locating requirements.

Wall Constrained Technologies

For healthcare providers requiring Clinical-Grade Locating, Gen2IR technology offers a solution. This technology produces signals blocked by walls, ceilings, and floors, and will not pass through glass. A Glass/Curtain Dividing technology can be used to divide dual occupancy rooms or bays separated by a curtain.

A sophisticated use case is improving care and enhancing patient flow in a Surgical department. For example, a hospital using a BLE-only vendor to track patients throughout perioperative phases found that BLE's low cost and ubiquity made it attractive for basic location needs. However, for automating workflow, documenting patient information, and coordinating critical staff, a certainty-based, wall constrained locating technology is required. Location data in these scenarios cannot be estimated via triangulation or trilateration, regardless of device density. In practice, patients were sometimes documented in the OR when they were still in pre-op, demonstrating that BLE alone cannot achieve Clinical-Grade Locating in high-acuity, real-world environments.

The Benefits of BLE & Healthcare's Location Adoption Model

The above experience highlights the need to match solution and use case requirements with the appropriate technology. BLE is effective for solutions such as Wayfinding and Asset Tracking but does not support advanced solutions like Staff Locating, Hand Hygiene Compliance, and Patient Flow. Each indoor locating technology has its place, and platforms like CenTrak have adopted interoperable systems integrating BLE, Second Generation Infrared, Wi-Fi, Active UHF, Low Frequency, and more.

Scalability is important when selecting a location and sensing services platform. Tracking patients in the OR requires wall-constrained technologies, while basic asset visibility can be accomplished with estimated or limited-certainty solutions. When selecting an RTLS technology, ensure its scientific characteristics align with organizational objectives. Many platforms offer hybrid (Multi-Mode) technologies, providing multiple means of locating tags.

Evaluate the type of accuracy required (room, bed, bay, shelf, etc.) and select a partner offering a combination of technologies for each use case. The market is filled with failed investments that could not achieve Clinical-Grade Locating, emphasizing the importance of matching technology to need.