Smart Healthcare System Using Containerized Internet of Medical Things

Introduction

The traditional healthcare system cannot meet people's expectations in the modern technology era. This may be because of the rapid increase of populations all over the world or lesser use of technology. Even though we have good doctors, technology, and good infrastructure, everyone can't avail the medical facilities. Providing healthcare services at a reasonable cost and enhancing the ease of access to the healthcare system is a challenging task. Some people can't afford it, and some can't approach it. So, the term smart healthcare comes into the picture to make the healthcare system available and approachable to everyone at any point. A smart healthcare system provides healthcare services to the people and educates people to self-manage some minor health issues in emergency and make them aware of their health. The intelligent management of the medical ecosystem using technology such as the Internet of Medical Things(IoMT), cloud computing, edge computing, containerization, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and different wearable medical devices is termed as a smart healthcare system. The smart healthcare system allows the facility to interconnect medical devices and access medical information, patient data, hospital details, etc., online. A smart healthcare system provides communication between patients and doctors to exchange information remotely. Smart healthcare system reduces the cost of treatment irrespective of geographical location by allowing report monitoring of patients and remotely controlling the medical ecosystems.

In the last few decades, there has been an increasing adaption of information and communication technology (ICT) in the healthcare domain to make the healthcare system readily available to everyone and every time. The use of ICT in healthcare improves service quality, maintains the e-healthcare record, and makes it cost-effective. The e-healthcare record stores details about patients, including their medication history such as prescriptions, last diagnoses report, previous and latest lab test reports, last recommended medicines, and any adverse effect caused in the recent past due to medication, etc. The patient need not carry the previous prescription while visiting a doctor. The doctor can access all details of a patient online from the medical database using a computer or any other electronic device. The term smart healthcare system comes to the fore because of the integration and application of technologies such as the Internet of Medical Things(IoMT), Cloud computing, Edge Computing, Containerization, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, etc. In a smart healthcare system, several medical devices are equipped to collect and manage medical data, remote patient monitoring, track health status and location of patients, and monitor and control medical devices to act according to the patients' suitability. On the Internet of Medical Things, several medical devices and applications are connected using networking technology and continuously produce a massive amount of data. The IoMT allows analyzing, managing, storing, and transmitting those data, making IoMT a connected healthcare infrastructure.

The main contribution of this chapter is the following.

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  A novel architecture for the smart healthcare system is presented that aims to integrate four technologies; cloud computing, edge computing, containerization, i.e., OS-level virtualization, and Internet of Medical Things.

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  We introduced the concept of containerization at the edge of the smart healthcare system. We described how the container at the edge would improve the latency requirement and improve response time.

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  A brief description of containerization is presented and how it is better than traditional hardware virtualization.

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  We found some key technologies that can be used in the smart healthcare system and their impact on it. The technologies include the Internet of Medical Things, Machine Learning, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Embedded Systems, and 5G communication technology.

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  We discuss different challenges involved in a smart healthcare system that need to be taken care of and considered while designing a healthcare system.

Challenges In Digital Smart Healthcare Systems

There are several challenges involved in the smart healthcare system that need to be taken care of and considered while designing the healthcare system. These are discussed below.