Tag Archive for "healthcare"

This Week in The Internet of Things: Friday Favorites

The Internet of Things is developing and buzzing all around us. Throughout the week we come across innovative projects, brilliant articles and posts that support and feature the innovators and companies that make our business possible. Here’s our list of favorites from this week’s journey on the Web.

M2M and the Internet of Things: A guide on ZDNet

The Internet of Things at CES 2013 on the iDigi Blog

How Many Things Are Currently Connected To The “Internet of Things” (IoT)? on Forbes via Quora

Quantified Self & the Internet of Things: Everyone is collecting your data, so why shouldn’t you? on The Next Web

Do you have a link to share? Please tell us in the comments below or Tweet us, @XBeeWireless — we would love to share your findings too. You can also follow all of the commentary and discussion with the hashtag #FridayFavorites.

2013 Forecast: The Internet of Things is Changing Your World, So Pay Attention

The Internet of Things — you see the term daily and hear people debate about how its full inception will happen, even more so with Consumer Electronics Show right around the corner (January 8, 2013 in Las Vegas). And, by now, you’ve seen the statistic that 50-100 billion devices will be connected to the Internet within the next few years over and over again. You get it: the Internet of Things is being created as we speak.

But, enough with the how and the what for a moment, let’s take some time to focus on the why. Why should you care if a physical thing is connected to the Internet? Why does it matter? Are these connected things going to change your life?

The answer, in short, is yes. Here are just some of the ways that the Internet of Things will impact the way we live — ways that the Internet of Things will help us to live longer, create businesses that are more productive and profitable and develop methods to save our planet and improve the quality of life.

Food that Talks
The Problem: Our Food System
The modern food system, one of the most debated models in our world, directly affects our daily lives. We’re generally aware that we lack vital information about where our food comes from and how fresh it is. Increased access to this information means healthier people and added sustainability to our entire food system.

The Solution: Sensors for Fresh and Sustainable Food
The Internet of Things can be one of the answers in a set of solutions that can better our food system. Sensors can provide information on where food comes from and how fresh it is. It can literally track food from growth to shelf-life in a grocery store. Libelium, a company that designs and manufactures hardware technology, has deployed their wireless sensor systems, Waspmote sensors that monitor food from production and harvesting to consumption and bio-waste outputs. These tiny sensors empower us to eat healthier, more fresh food, understand our system and make better consumption decisions.

Bodies that Tell Our Doctors What We Need
The Problem: How Do We Tell Doctors What We Need When We Don’t Even Know
The Problem: You walk into the emergency room with a problem, a pain– something could be wrong. Your well-being is at stake. The doctor measures the severity of your issue by showing you a chart with faces that range from smiling to distressed. “Point at the face that describes how you feel,” the doctor asks. In a world full of technology, this is a scenario that you could still see take place in a doctor’s office or hospital to communicate patient condition to healthcare providers.

The Solution: Devices that Read Data from Our Bodies
The Internet of Things can collect information from our bodies, store historical data and let our doctors know when something is wrong– even when they aren’t bedside. From wireless EKG machines that allow doctors to collect patient data remotely, to tiny devices and applications like iBGStar which helps people with diabetes track their information, review trends and share data with their healthcare team. Devices can literally listen to our bodies as we go about our lives and tell us when it’s time to take action.

Saving Lives through Early Detection
The Problem: Lack of Awareness Increases Loss
Many times we have the technology to save lives but lack the time necessary between becoming aware of a problem and the time a disaster happens. A forest fire, an earthquake, a C02 leak– when it comes to disasters, early awareness can save lives.

The Solution: Detection systems that Allow for Proactive Rescue
The Internet of Things can create the world’s most advanced detection systems for earthquakes, fires and even systems for long-term detection like pollution. For example, Firebreak USA Corp., a manufacturer of perimeter wildfire detection systems, uses device data to protect system to detect wildfires to local authorities and area residents to protect homes, property and people. The systems are deployed in remote areas where wireline data communication is unavailable. Firebreak uses ConnectPort gateways and XBee ZigBee modules to wirelessly connect fire detection sensors. Alerts are setup to notifying authorities using the cloud to relay information. Authorities are alerted of a fire within a matter of seconds and are sent to firefighters’ cell phones if an alarm is triggered.

Saving Money and Providing a Piece of Mind
The Problem: Moving and/or Changing Assets Affect Business Profitability
When it comes to business, inventory is everything. Even the best, most hard working business owners can’t spend all of their time keeping a watchful eye on physical goods.

The Solution: Applications that Report the Condition and Location of Assets
The Internet of Things can give business owners insight on the condition and location of assets from anywhere. Sensors can determine product location during transportation. Sensors can also detect whether the assets are in the proper environment. For example, Benjamin Roberts, owner of France 44 cheese shop in Minnesota, uses the Internet of Things to monitor his greatest asset, cheese for his shop. After an HVAC failure caused major product loss, Roberts turned to wireless remote monitoring and control for a fail-proof system. Now, if the temperature is above a specific threshold, he receives a text, alerting him that his cheese is in danger.

Increasing Relevant Use of the World’s Resources
The Problem: Using Without Reason
The world has limited resources and as humans, we might not realize when we’re being wasteful. It’s estimated that major cities waste up to 50% of water due to leaky pipes. Irrigation systems run when it’s raining and street lights remain on even when there’s no activity in the area.

Solution: Using the Internet to Tell Us When to Save
Internet connected sensors can control detect unnecessary use and make adjustments. Irrigation systems can turn off when rain is detected, lights can go dim when they aren’t needed and leaking pipes can send a text to landlords. These improvements help us save resources by increasing efficiency and large amounts of money.

Empowering Ourselves with Improved City Systems
The Problem: We Have Systems, but We Need Systems that Improve Life Quality
Our current systems work, but what if they could literally improve the quality of our lives? As humans, we’ve created systems that get us where we need to go.

The Solution: Systems that save Time, Energy and Money
The Internet of Things can be used to empower the systems we’ve already created to work for us in the best way possible. For instance, public transportation saves time and money, but it could work even better. The cloud can automate a variety of tasks in various systems. Take public transportation, the Internet of Things can create the next generation public transportation system. The technology makes it possible for operators to see their position in route, ticket sales, a camera with bus activity and more. A system like this also allows for location-based advertising. And for bus riders, how about receiving a text a few minutes before the bus arrives so there’s no more time wasted waiting at the stop or missing the bus. Ads can be as relevant as showing a nearby brewery on the way home from work.

What does all of this mean?
It means that the next time you hear about the Internet of Things, you’ll be aware that although it may just seem like a buzz word, you’ll know that the connection of physical devices to the Internet is already changing your life on multiple levels. Healthcare, safety, business, energy efficiency and overall quality of life are and will continue to see major improvements created by the Internet of Things. And, the exciting part, these possibilities are only the beginning.

Do you have an example of how the Internet of Things is changing your life or business? Share in the comments section below or on Twitter. We would love to share your story.

How M2M Will Transform Medical Information

Yesterday on Twitter, we received a question from Heidi in response to an article we shared. Heidi asked how M2M might transform medical information worldwide. We thought that such a great question solicited a thoughtful answer– one with more than 140 characters. So, we asked our healthcare IT expert and guest blogger, Eric Abbott to weigh in on the topic.

In response, Eric pointed out three key areas that M2M will transform medical information.

Timely Access
First, M2M is able to exchange medical information in real-time or near real-time between a patient and clinical systems and caregivers, promoting timely access to care for patients. This is a bi-directional benefit, as caregivers can react to changing patient conditions in a transparent manner. For example, in some circumstances, both patient and caregiver are able to know that their treatment is working in a matter of hours, and not weeks, thus eliminating anxiety.

Monitoring
Industry trends show that M2M technology costs are decreasing while wireless networks accessed by M2M systems are becoming more pervasive. What this means is that monitoring of patients and people for disease management and wellness, respectively, are becoming less intrusive. Consequently, this improves quality of life, particularly since people are mobile and they don’t want to give up active lifestyles. Additionally, I want to mention that many different industry initiatives are currently underway specifically designed to promote M2M globally by tackling such hurdles as battery life of M2M devices. Indeed, self-powered M2M devices (i.e., via body heat or motion) are now reality. This particularly benefits disadvantaged regions of the World, where maintenance and operating costs for clinical M2M can be an issue.

Knowledge that Impacts Outcome
By providing data exchange between patients and clinical systems, M2M promotes knowledge exchange about the efficacy of treatments or even wellness programs across a diverse array of individuals. Hence, medical informaticists are able to analyze clinical outcomes across large participatory populations. This is incredibly important, because it helps to reveal trends, dependencies, and.or optimal courses of therapy, thereby promoting faster development of treatments, and mitigation/elimination of ineffective treatments, all of which lowers the costs of care, improves clinical outcomes, and increases the quality of care.

We thank Heidi for her question. It opens the doors for us to share more information on M2M and its impact on healthcare. If you’re interested in seeing how specific M2M applications have been implemented, you can see case studies and system diagrams here.

Do you have a question about the Internet of Things or M2M? Would you like us to cover a specific topic here on the iDigi blog? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter. We’re here to provide useful information for you, so we love your questions and comments.

Wireless Devices Answer the Call for Help via McKnight’s

This article was written by Kelly Besecker, Vice President for Sales and Marketing at AFrame Digital and Steve Popovich, our Vice President of Business Development at Digi International.

As a result of rising medical costs and an increasing number of patients with chronic conditions, many senior living facilities are seeking wireless monitoring solutions for managing patients’ health in addition to life-safety. For all patients or residents, any change or decline in their condition needs to be detected as quickly as possible to allow for early intervention.

According to a study conducted by IMS Research, more than 50 million wireless health monitoring devices will ship for consumer monitoring applications during the next five years. Such devices offer personalized care for a variety of health scenarios, including fall risks.

Falls are a major health risk. It is estimated that one in three persons over the age of 65 is likely to fall at least once a year. Personal emergency response systems can help by providing a “panic button” device that a senior can press if an accident occurs. However, a 2008 study by the British Medical Journal found that 80% of people over the age of 90 who wore monitoring devices never pushed the alert button after a fall, either because they didn’t want to bother anyone or were unable to do so. If a fall goes undetected, the results can be devastating for both the patient and the senior living facility. Remaining on the floor, even for a few hours, can lead to problems such as dehydration, low body temperature and skin sores due to pressure. Additionally, senior living facilities can face the loss of revenue, lawsuits and license revocation if falls go undetected.

To prevent undetected falls, senior living facilities are now looking for solutions that feature a built-in accelerometer that measures movement and orientation, and can automatically sense falls. When a fall is detected, it sends an alert where it is deemed appropriate, such as a caregiver or nurse station. With automatic alerts, caregivers are able to act more quickly to provide assistance. In addition, automatic detection allows a trend to be developed over time that may indicate an increase in instability over time. If the system also determines the location of the resident, a pattern of difficulty with certain locations or time of day may emerge.

Of course, it is everyone’s goal to prevent falls before they happen. Most falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors such as weakness, confusion and certain medications. Research has shown that identification and attention to these risk factors can significantly reduce fall rates. Companies such as AFrame Digital have introduced technology that is designed to detect changes so medical personnel and caregivers can be alerted before a fall happens.

AFrame’s MobileCare™ Monitor system, a wrist watch-like device, wirelessly communicates a user’s motion and location data to a cloud-based monitoring and alerting system. The AFrame system’s capabilities include emergency call, impact detection, location tracking, along with activity and vitals tracking and trending. The solution uses ZigBee wireless technology, provided by Digi International, to connect to the network, and the iDigi Device cloud to make system management easy.

Read the Full Article on McKnight’s

Identity Management in an M2M World: 5 Key Considerations

By Guest Blogger: Eric Abbott is a technology executive with a deep understanding of healthcare IT and telecommunications infrastructure. With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Abbott is responsible for leading product management initiatives at ExteNet Systems. Prior to joining ExteNet Systems, Mr. Abbott served as a Senior Product Manager for Motorola, Inc. There, he led the development of advanced applications and communication systems for healthcare, public safety agencies, and enterprise customers. His background also includes medical informatics, healthcare IT, business strategy, operations, and systems engineering.

Identify management (IM) is increasingly an important consideration for leading healthcare organizations (HCOs). In broad terms, IM is defined as the process and means by which people and things are authorized, authenticated, and accounted during interactions between disparate systems. For example, IM may refer to either the process by which a user supplies credentials to gain access to a system or the user’s password and/or another unique identifier (in the case of two-factor authentication). In this way, the identity of the person or the object is firmly established to ensure that system integrity (i.e., the security, privacy, or other requirement) is assured.

Traditionally, HCOs have viewed IM as a means to manage IT and telecommunications assets. For example, IM may be used to ensure compliance to HIPAA standards (privacy and security), enforcement of enterprise policies and practices, and to provide authorized users with local and/or remote access to enterprise systems such as clinical databases.

The changing healthcare landscape coupled with the burgeoning proliferation of machine-to-machine (M2M) medical devices is forcing HCOs to re-examine their approach to IM. Drivers may be classified intro three general categories. The first are structurally changes. These include the availability of low cost M2M medical devices, pervasive broadband wireless networks, and standards-based data standards that facilitate interoperability with cloud-based services, such as the iDigi Cloud, thus creating a rich and diverse medical informatics ecosystem. In the afore-mentioned scenario, the iDigi Device Cloud promotes transparent and seamless exchange of data and information to create true knowledge sharing anytime, anywhere. Thus, a Digi M2M pulse oxometer worn by a patient is able to interface to a variety of disparate communication systems, improving a monitored patient’s mobility, thereby promoting increased quality of life.

The second are organizational changes. These include accountable care organization (ACO) metrics arising from legislative reforms. ACOs benefit from M2M data transactions by having real-time, contextual data to demonstrate, for example, improved quality of care.

The last are cultural changes as illustrated by the concept of personalized medicine, which reflects changing supply side and demand side psycho-demographic acceptance of M2M, smartphones, tablets, and other electronic means that are used for the delivery of healthcare services.

The following five key IM considerations are critical to HCOs considering changes to their enterprise architectures in order to leverage new data and M2M paradigms.

1. Identity authentication is paramount.
It can’t be assumed that a given M2M module assigned to an individual or system always remains a valid and true association. M2M modules can be lost, stolen, or replicated by well-intentioned or malicious entities. As with smartphones (i.e., Bring Your Own Device or BYOD), the identity of the M2M module must be continually validated using advanced security technologies incorporated into IM systems.

2. Reporting and Monitoring.
Chronic disease management and wellness are two of the most applications of M2M in healthcare. IM of M2M modules must be able to transcend multiple wireless technologies and provide highly-available and robust communications back to the HCO for both healthcare data reporting and monitoring of M2M system health.

3. Role and attribute based management.
Rich IM of M2M must include contextual factors such as the user, available resources, its location, and time to provide operational management efficiencies that are harmonized with enterprise policies and security best practices. For example, data off-load of M2M to Wi-Fi networks as opposed to cellular-based systems when and as appropriate based on the factors above.

4. Provisioning.
Multiple M2M modules may be assigned to systems and/or a person. IM provisioning rules that are extensible are critical to ensure both management and maintenance of M2M devices across the ecosystem. This should apply whether or not a patient is local or remote.

5. Remediation and control.
IM must be able to make real-time and near real-time control changes to M2M modules when vulnerabilities and anomalies are detected, including threats (i.e., cyber-attacks) and/or functional failure of the M2M module. Thus, in the iDigi taxonomy, the operational efficiency and integrity of an iDigi M2M module is constantly assured, promoting high levels of reliability and availability, while minimizing operational risks arising, for example, from cyber threats.

You can learn more about the iDigi Device Cloud here and more about Digi International’s healthcare solutions here. Have a question for Eric? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter.

Top 5 Lessons about Wireless in Healthcare

Meet our guest blogger: Eric Abbott is a technology executive with a deep understanding of healthcare IT and telecommunications infrastructure. With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Abbott is responsible for leading product management initiatives at ExteNet Systems. Prior to joining ExteNet Systems, Mr. Abbott served as a Senior Product Manager for Motorola, Inc. There, he led the development of advanced applications and communication systems for healthcare, public safety agencies, and enterprise customers. His background also includes medical informatics, healthcare IT, business strategy, operations, and systems engineering.

The convergence of healthcare IT with wireless technology has achieved tremendous strides in improving access to care, timeliness of care, patient safety, and the quality of care. Indeed, real-time, contextual access to the healthcare enterprise EMR has enabled new delivery method paradigms, as evidenced by the rise of mobile health modalities. Healthcare vendors have responded with a rich suite of new products, applications, and services to create an infrastructure environment of connectivity between people, things, and processes, thereby promoting continuity of care between a healthcare organization’s EMR and wireless medical devices and instruments. Examples range from biometric machine-to-machine (M2M) medical device sensors that form body area networks to applications running on a commercial wireless device such as an iPhone or iPAD.

Healthcare organizations dealing with the world of wireless have learned the following top 5 lessons.

1. Security and privacy is paramount.
Physical, technical, and operational safeguards are critical necessities when dealing with multiple families of wireless devices. Bring your own device (BYOD) practices enhances potential vulnerabilities, and reliance on native security and privacy methods is not prudent given strengthened HIPAA requirements and emerging requirements.

2. Sizing and selection of infrastructure is critical towards assuring high levels of availability to users.
Wireless technology offerings have evolved beyond Wi-Fi. Healthcare organizations must understand how to use and select broadband technologies such as 4G LTE and Bluetooth inside and outside the 4-walls of the hospital.

3. Financing of wireless services is a reality.
Traditional, fixed capital Wi-Fi based systems are yielding way to hybrid wireless systems that include commercial wireless service offered by public wireless carriers. Financing of commercial wireless infrastructure given their up-front capital and recurring operations costs is an important consideration from an operations standpoint.

4. The extent of offered wireless services is a key consideration.
Potential interference, inherent capacity limitations and constraints, and assured interoperability between wireless systems mandates intelligent wireless management methods such as service access control and network access control.

5. HIT workflow and technology integration is fundamental for success implementations.
Semantic interoperability between end-processes requires rigorous integration practices that include attention to latency, throughput limitations, and other technical metrics. Additionally, clinical workflow integration from a cultural and organizational standpoint is necessary via training and best practices process methods in order to facilitate adoption. In turn, these achieve operational efficiencies and thus the expected return on investment.

Want to read more on wireless in healthcare? You can read our last M2M healthcare post, “An Introduction to M2M and Healthcare,” here.

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Meet The Team

This Week in The Internet of Things: Friday Favorites

2013 Forecast: The Internet of Things is Changing Your World, So Pay Attention

How M2M Will Transform Medical Information

Identity Management in an M2M World: 5 Key Considerations

Top 5 Lessons about Wireless in Healthcare