IoT in Hospital ICU

Someone asked me this question - How do you see IoT being implemented in the hospital ICU setting

Again it's really the question of the pain points that you see in the hospital's ICU. Who are the actors/stakeholders in the ICU?

1. Patient
2. Nurse and Doctors
3. Family Member
4. Hospital Admin

ICU is one of the critical places and it's all about the life and death of an individual. It starts when you receive an Emergency Call. How do you despatch the medical personnel immediately and efficiently? How do you diagnose and register the patient quickly? How do you measure their critical health statistics continuously and have medical advice from the remote.

Once the patient is in the care, medical equipment needs to monitor continuously and get the data to diagnose as fast as possible. Any changes to the patient's health requires immediate notification and attention to the medical personnel. IoT sensors are critical in doing the monitoring and sending alerts if required.

Health data from the patient can be quickly diagnosed rather than to have wait hours or days or weeks. Big data analytics play a big role here. With enough data, you can predict or prevent or prescribe solutions.

Family members will be able to monitor remotely of given access and see their loved ones or even communicate with them via conference call when they are out of danger mode. Any alerts can also be sent directly to the family.

The above are some hypotheses and can be confirmed when we have a Workshop together to really understand the work process and the actual pain points.