Advances in cloud computing, data analytics, communication infrastructure, and low-cost hardware have enabled hyper-connected devices, where the physical world is seamlessly meeting the digital world. These hyper-connected devices are transforming nearly every industry, from retail and telecommunications to industrial automation and smart cities.

In the medical field, hyper-connected devices are powering digital medicine, telehealth, and other innovative approaches to improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs. These devices are also driving the shift to smart hospitals, which is a way to leverage medical AI to make decisions that improve productivity and efficiency.

Read on to learn more about IoMT and smart medical devices.

What is IoMT?

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) refers to physical devices that are connected to a network to share the data they collect and generate valuable insights. Software applications analyze the data collected from these connected devices, giving medical staff valuable information — often remotely and in real time.

IoMT (also known as healthcare IoT) is part of a broader set of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that provide data-driven insights across nearly every industry. Consumer IoT includes smart home products, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and much more. In addition, sensors are often deployed in an industrial setting to create smart factories that improve productivity, reduce risks, and lower manufacturing costs.

Despite the benefits of IoMT, there are technical and regulatory challenges involved with the development and deployment of these devices. IoMT devices — especially those that integrate AI capabilities — are often resource-intensive and have high power consumption. The data-driven nature of these devices also means there are strict certification requirements to meet the data privacy and security regulations of the healthcare industry.

Different Types of IoMT Devices

There are four major ways that IoMT devices are deployed:

On-body

• Consumer health wearables: Apple Watches for personal wellness and fitness, Oura Rings that track sleep, and other devices designed to collect personal health data.
• Clinical-grade wearables: Smart belts that can detect falls and other devices which track heart rate or skin temperature that meet the requirements of healthcare providers.

In-home

• Remote patient monitoring: Devices and sensors that continuously monitor for chronic disease management or acute home monitoring shortly after being discharged from the hospital.
• Personal emergency response systems: Devices that integrate with live medical call centers to speed up emergency care.

Community

• Mobile sensors: Ambulances with emergency response intelligence systems to monitor patients during transit to the hospital.
• Point of care: Portable devices that can medically examine patients and provide quick and accurate results on-the-spot.

In-hospital

• Smart hospital devices: There are a wide range of devices deployed to hospitals, including embedded biosensors for patient monitoring, telehealth devices that simulate face-to-face interactions between patients and doctors, remote surgery viewing devices, and much more.

How IoMT Smart Devices Work

IoMT devices are all about turning physical information into digital data that can be shared over the Internet to generate insights. That means IoMT devices start by taking in data, whether it’s an audiovisual feed or vital information from sensors.

This raw data is stored and processed locally on the device (embedded systems), on a local server (edge devices), or transferred to the cloud. A widespread deployment of IoMT devices generates a massive amount of data that creates latency, security, data privacy, and deployment challenges. For these reasons, many medical technology developers are shifting from processing in the cloud to at the edge because this approach can produce real-time insights.

Besides the physical devices themselves, medical technology developers are creating the software that analyzes and generates insights. There are many AI/ML platforms that accelerate the process for developing AI-powered medical applications capable of harnessing the data collected by IoMT devices. In fact, AI is being utilized in the healthcare industry to deliver data-driven clinical decision support (CDS) and programmed insights for healthcare providers.

Delivering IoMT Devices with MBX

Healthcare AI and IoMT device adoption is only going to continue to grow in the coming years, and medical technology developers will need to adapt to the demands of smart hospitals. With the right MedTech solutions partner, delivering these smart medical devices doesn’t need to be complicated and time-consuming.

MBX Systems is a specialist in complex hardware engineering solutions, including smart medical devices. Our approach uses a combination of preconfigured hardware and customization to tailor devices to specific requirements, bringing time and cost efficiencies to the manufacturing process. This approach dramatically can accelerate time-to-market by up to 7x for medical technology developers that would have created a device from scratch.

Contact MBX Systems and let us help you bring your medical device to market.