There is a growing trend of healthcare providers moving towards devices that enable the remote patient monitoring of vital health parameters. With various sources reporting a CAGR of 25-40 percent of this use case over the next 5 years.

Evidently, transformative technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) is one of the main drivers of this growth. Aiming to improves patient care, while reducing hospital readmissions and overall healthcare costs.

Read on to find out more.

What are patient monitoring devices?

IoT patient monitoring devices remain the most common IoT and digital application in healthcare.

These devices are designed to collect and transmit vital signs, medical data, and other health metrics to healthcare providers. Allowing them to continuously monitor patient conditions off-site, and in real-time, enabling intervention in a timely manner.

While more sophisticated applications include tracking blood glucose, ECGs, and more, remote monitoring devices are not new. Most wearable devices such as smart watches have the capabilities to track basic vital signs (e.g. heart rate).

Why the need for remote patient monitoring devices?

For patients, this eliminates the need for travel, especially if they live in a remote area. It also gets patients back to a familiar routine and environment to better aid recovery. Due to continuous, uninterrupted monitoring, any abnormal readings can be resolved swiftly while reducing the rate of human error.

For healthcare providers, it reduces workload by automating a manual process. This in turn, alleviates common industry issues including worker shortage and high attrition rates.

Data collected offers healthcare providers the possibility to detect and predict patterns, leveraging data coming from these devices. This data also facilitates quick and frequent adjustments to a care plan to improve overall patient well being. 

Data security and privacy

When it comes to medical data, security and privacy are crucial. These should always be at the forefront of all service providers throughout the value chain.

When a device collects patient data, the data is transmitted across various platforms. This includes software applications that aggregate data, to algorithms that may be used to analyze the data in order to recommend treatments or generate alerts.

Due to the nature the data collected, security and privacy by design must be part of any IoT use case. This mindset should also be at the forefront of any project or deployment from the start.

Additionally, governments around the world continue to introduce more stringent legislation to prevent the abuse and misuse of information. The most recent regulatory frameworks include:

• The PSTI Bill in the UK that came into force on April, 2024
• The EU’s Cyber Resiliency Act, enforced November, 2024

However, the responsibility of maintaining gold standards of patient data security and privacy, shouldn’t rest solely with government institutions.

Healthcare providers need to pay more attention to compliance as well. This extends to updates to the EU GDPR or HIPPA in the US.

The best way to start planning an IoT project or digitization process in healthcare is to partner with an experienced, transparent solutions provider with a proven record of security and reliability.

Final thoughts

IoT applications have quickly progressed from behind the scenes in a modern warehouse, to tech-driven medical facilities and providers.

There is little doubt that IoT adoption will continue as the technology continues to advance in the healthcare field.

If you are working on an IoT project across any of these use cases, why not try our SIMs today?

Alternatively, learn more about cellular connectivity, cybersecurity and privacy compliance here or contact one of our industry experts who are always there to lend a hand.