These days, everyone must have heard the word AI(artificial intelligence) at least once a day. AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) are revolutionizing almost every industry globally.
In the case of the healthcare industry, the steadfast deployment of AI algorithms in IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) devices gathers medical records and datasets, which broadly helps healthcare providers in making clinical decisions.
This technological advancement or digitalization in healthcare has led to increased clinical data and screening, generating massive amounts of data. In 2023, its standalone generated 2,314 exabytes of data, tremendously assisting doctors and patients for better outcomes.
The IoMT or IoT devices and sensors track (gather), monitor (analyze), control, optimize (train), and automate (model, predict) medical data, reducing the administration burden on clinical staff. It allows doctors to spend more time on patients, improving overall patient outcomes and care coordination. This post will declutter the various aspects of AI and IoT capabilities in EHR integration, resulting in high-quality patient care.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare
The advancement of AI in healthcare has made significant strides in how doctors diagnose, treat, and monitor patients, leading to more customized telemedicine software development. This technology assists patients to get the healthcare delivery with a specialists in few clicks. It provides meticulous diagnosis reports and enables personalized treatments of patients. AI in healthcare generate and analyze vast amount of clinical data, assisting medical professionals in identifying potential threats and trends in patient health conditions beforehand.
The healthcare organization leverages AI to make its system more intelligent, faster, and more efficient in providing care to millions of patients worldwide.
The AI in healthcare market was valued at $15.4B in 2022 and is expected to grow $187B at a CAGR of 37.5% from 2023 to 2030.
AI in the healthcare industry is used in approx 39% of service operations, 36% of product and service development, 35% of risk management, 34% of chain management, and 28% of marketing and sales.
IoT (Internet of Things) Revolutionizing Healthcare
IoT is transforming the healthcare industry by improving patient care and making the healthcare system more faster and efficient. IoT-enabled wearable devices collect, analyze, and transmit patients’ medical data to their respective providers or caregivers. It allows them to identify and address complications before they get severe, quickly improving overall clinical decision-making.
The IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) market is growing exponentially. In 2023, the global IoMT market is estimated over $65M and is expected to grow $357B by 2031 with a CAGR of 23%.
Integration of AI and IoT with Electronic Health Records (EHR)
Integrating AI and IoT in Electronic Health Records (EHR) is crucial in delivering quality healthcare. AI-based EHR software analyzes the medical data from IoT devices which assist in predictive analysis and making informed decisions. The AI integrated into EHR can interpret the large dataset, enabling data visualization for all the significant metrics generated by wearable IoMT devices in seconds.
AI-assisted EHR systems draw out the prediction of health changes to justify or denounce the suggested prognosis or diagnosis. AI in telemedicine software development has the potential to make NLP chatbot integration more effortless, increasing patient engagement.
Benefits of AI and IoT in EHR Integration
There are numerous benefits of AI and IoT in EHR Integration which are as follows:-
- Analyzing and interpreting real-time data to assist medical professionals in diagnosis and finding patterns and trends in patient outcomes.
- Improves clinical decision-making for the provider, eliminating room for error.
- Provides accurate diagnoses and treatment suggestions to providers by assessing large volumes of medical data.
- AI also helps detect abnormalities in medical imaging, such as X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs.
Challenges and Concerns in Implementing AI and IoT in EHR
There are numerous challenges and concerns in implementing AI and IoT in EHR. These are as follows:-
- Data Security and Privacy: Protecting sensitive patient data from unauthorized access is demanding. It is challenging for the EHR vendor to ensure data privacy and compliance with regulations like HIPAA.
- Interoperability: Achieving seamless interoperability between multiple healthcare systems, IoT devices, and platforms is very complex for EHR providers. It requires data standardization and protocols to Integrate AI and IoT in existing EHR systems
- Ethical and Legal Consideration: AI algorithms and automated clinical decisions can raise accountability, bias, and transparency concerns. In addition to that, a legal consideration of data ownership, consent, and accessibility is critical to be addressed for healthcare businesses while implementing these futuristic technologies.
- Regulatory framework: It is essential for the healthcare organization to establish clear regulatory frameworks that govern the use of AI technologies to ensure patient safety.
Use Cases and Examples of AI and IoT in EHR Integration
The use cases of AI and IoT applications in healthcare are distinct. Below, we discuss some of the critical applications of AI and IoT in healthcare.
- Medical Imaging – It is one of the crucial application aspects of AI in healthcare. The AI algorithms meticulously analyze and interpret medical images, such as Computed tomography (CT) scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and X-rays, offer crucial insights into patient health conditions. This technology improves the accuracy and speed of diagnosis assisting providers in taking informed decisions.
- Personalized treatment – The AI algorithms can analyze a patient’s medical history, genetic information, and lifestyle changes to forecast potential disease risks. It helps healthcare professionals provide personalized care to the patients.
- Electronic Health Record (EHR) – Medical professionals use AI to analyze large datasets to identify patterns and trends that can prevent diseases and treatments. In addition to that, it is also used to detect potential fraud in the billing process and improve medical coding accuracy, resulting in cost savings and better patient outcomes. AI-powered chatbots assist in remote patient care, improving overall patient engagement.
Future Trends in Healthcare with AI and IoT
The current trends of AI and IoT in healthcare emphasize remote patient monitoring, wearable devices, predictive analysis, and smart hospitals. This combination of technology results in accurate diagnoses increases patient engagement, and improves health outcomes. The future trends in H-IoT (Healthcare Internet of Things) were utilizing medical data for strategic planning and developing personalized treatment strategies. However, data security and privacy are the main concerns that need to be addressed for the safe and efficient use of H-IoT.
Conclusion
AI and IoT are the future of the healthcare industry. It certainly can reshape the future of healthcare, saving time and effort on clinical cases. The recent pandemic has focused on the limitations and crises of the healthcare industry and echoes the significance of IoT technology’s implications. Overall, AI and IoMT can improve the efficiency of healthcare professionals and organizations.