Abstract
Globally, healthcare professionals strive to diagnose, monitor, and save human lives. An application that advances the medical field to the next level is the need of the hour. Smart healthcare systems using IoT help in the process of monitoring human health by minimizing human intervention. Taking care and monitoring of human health has a significant contribution in declining the mortality rate as well. IoT in healthcare has aided smarter communications and prompt treatment to save lives. Patient data are sensed by sensors/microcontrollers, sent over the internet, stored in the cloud, and received by healthcare professionals during emergencies. Applications of such smart healthcare using IoT are blood glucose meters, medical vehicles, sphygmomanometer, pulse oximeter, Holter monitor, etc. This chapter elucidates several smart healthcare IoT applications using artificial intelligence and cloud computing technology. The chapter also elaborates the importance and functions of various cloud and AI components in designing a smart healthcare application.
INTRODUCTION TO SMART HEALTHCARE
Demand in healthcare system is increasing due to population explosion. Most of the medical services are not feasible and affordable by everyone. Smart healthcare helps people to be health-aware by updating their health status. Smart healthcare came into existence since the inception of telemedicine services. A service system that provides or gathers information promptly, connects people by making use of technology to form a medical ecosystem is considered to be a smart healthcare application. Such applications are developed using Internet of Things (IoT) by incorporating Artificial Intelligence Technology.
The main focus of smart healthcare system is remote monitoring of patients thereby reducing the total treatment cost. In spite of geographical barriers, medical practitioners can extend their services to the patients. End-users of smart healthcare services are Individuals, hospitals, government organizations, clinical research institutes, diagnostics laboratories etc. Smart healthcare aids individual users to self-manage their emergency situations. The objective of providing smart health care service is to enhance the quality and efficiency of medical service.
Quality of Service (QoS) in IoT
Functional components in healthcare systems are designed to cater the needs of specific application whereas non-functional components are the aspects through which the quality of a smart healthcare application is determined. The Quality of Service (QoS) for any smart healthcare application should satisfy the following attributes:
- 1.
Reliability- the ability to produce similar results by including fault tolerant methods
- 2.
Low power consumption- ability to work with minimum voltage levels
- 3.
Interoperability- ability to exchange information and data among different information technology systems
- 4.
High speed- ability to communicate data and respond quickly
- 5.
Ambient Intelligent-ability to interact intelligently and unobtrusively with people
- 6.
Sufficient memory-ability to store essential data for computing without any performance
- 7.
Good connectivity- ability to transfer and receive data over a network without latency
- 8.
Small form factor-ability to achieve high functionality using small form factor
Iot Health-Care Services
IoT is predicted to empower several health-care assistance services where every service renders a combination of health-care solutions. Generally, a service cannot be fairly isolated from a specific solution or application. A variety of IoT health care services in potential areas where an IoT healthcare service or solution requires greater attention is listed by (ahad, Tahir, Aman Sheikh, Istiaque Ahmed, Mughees, & Numani, 2020) and summarized below.
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)
AAL are concepts, services, and products that enable technologies and the environment to enhance the quality of living. The Motivation of AAL is to provide freedom for elderly people in their ambience safely. AAL administrations provide self-governance and remote assistance at the time of any problem.
Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR)
ADR is the reaction that happens due to the use of a medicine prescribed by the doctor. Typically, ADR is the result of using a medicine in unusual proportion or perhaps the effect of mixing the medicine alongside other medicines. Techniques such as barcode/NFC-authorized gadgets are fixed in patients’ body to monitor the ADR. With the help of an intelligent framework to collect pharmaceutical data, smart IoT healthcare services are developed. The data are processed using a processing module for the detection of medicine with the allergy profile along with the electronic history of patient’s health.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Electrocardiogram: A graph of voltage with time to record the electrical activity of hart using electrodes placed on skin.
ZigBee: An IEEE wireless technology used in IoT networks.
Pulse Oximetry: A medical test to measure the oxygen level saturation of the blood.
Invasive: Tends to spread very quick harmfully or undesirably.
Spirometer: Breathing test to measure the amount of air in lungs.
Plethysmograph: An instrument to measure changes in volume within an organ or whole body.
Sensor: A device to detect events or changes in environment or human body.
Ingestible: Any object that can be consumed into human body.
Non-Intrusive: Medical inspection method to examine human body without opening the organ.
Near Field Communication: Radio frequency-based contact-less communication technology.