Internet Of Things Study: Wearable Fitness Tracking IOT Devices

Introduction

Internet of Things (IOT) refers to the network of uniquely identifiable physical objects or devices and their virtual representations. While some of these IOT objects or devices have sensor-capabilities to measure/sense and communicate their immediate environmental characteristics (e. g. , temperature, pressure, light, acceleration), they generally have the ability to store and communicate their unique identifier. The ability of these objects or devices to sense and communicate with the help of embedded technology that allows for interactions with internal states and external environment dramatically influences the involved actors, location, and nature of decisions made. Wearable fitness trackers are IOT based devices which can monitor or track physical activity of the person wearing them. They are typically worn like a wristband. There are several use cases and applications of IOT and especially in healthcare, the list includes: Telehealth: remote or real-time pervasive monitoring of patients, diagnosis and drug delivery.

Background

These wearable devices are used for entertainment and to enhance the quality of life. Wearable devices as electronics or computers that can be worn on the body when inserted into items of clothing and accessories. Examples of wearable devices are smart clothes, smart motorbikes helmets, smart bands and eye glasses. Wearable devices were mainly used in the military field, but are also becoming more common in various fields such as gaming, and especially in healthcare. In the field of healthcare, wearable devices include features such as health monitoring, exercise patterns, sleep patterns and heart pattern recording. Regarding monitoring of sleeping patterns and physical activity, smart bands are the most used wearable devices. Activity trackers can monitor activity parameters such as, number of steps taken, distance covered, average speed and calories burned. Some fitness and activity trackers can also monitor heart rate and sleep quality. This can provide a good picture of the wearer’s health. Some wearable fitness monitors support setting of daily fitness goals and show the progress made on those goals. This makes people accountable to their daily fitness goals and helps improve their health. Smart watches are an advanced version of fitness trackers providing much more than fitness tracking.

Researched problems in this case study:

Although IOT and wearable are considered a boon for the healthcare industry, there are many challenges that companies should address. The first and possibly the most serious of challenges is privacy. As most of the data is being moved to the cloud, it wouldn’t take long for private and sensitive data to fall into the wrong hands.

Without IOT there can be many problems which will not provide any efficient way to advance our healthcare system or it was not possible to improve human health.

Alternatives

In past there was no any advanced facilities in healthcare sector. It was not possible for patients to get instant treatment, to detect diseases easily, and so on. There can be many solutions:

1. To visit medicals for medicines always.
2. To visit doctors for respective checkups like Blood Pressure, Heart rate, etc.
3. To increase privacy and security avoid using IOT devices.
4. To set up person or any alarm to recall medicine taking schedule always.
5. To track the health related inside body changes by doctors. But it can create threat if change can not be detected in time.
6. To take care of fitness by our own.

This can be some of alternative solutions to improve human health without IOT wearable devices. But on observations it can be conclude that these cannot be proper solutions to improve health care sector. So the IOT fitness wearable devices can provide smart way to improve human health and reduce human efforts.

Proposed Solutions

IOT can provide following ways to improve health care sector and which can be solutions to advance our health care management. Also it will provide efficient way to track physical changes in health. So automate everything with IOT can be solution for all the derived problems. So With IOT fitness wearable all can be solved and these have following advantages:

To Turn Data Into Actions: Quantified health is going to be future of healthcare because health that is measurable can be better improved. Therefore, it is wise to take advantage of quantified health technology. We also know that data affects performance so, an object measurement and tracking of health for better outcomes is why we need IOT.

To Improve Patient Health: What if the wearable device connected to a patient tells you when his heart-rate is going haywire or if he has lagged behind in taking good care of himself and shared that information on other devices that you used while working? By updating personal health data of patients on the cloud and eliminating the need to feed it into the EMRs, IOT ensures that every tiny detail is taken into consideration to make the most advantageous decisions for patients. Moreover, it can be used as a medical adherence and home monitoring tool.

To Promote Preventive Care: Prevention has become a primary area of focus as health care expenses are projected to grow unmanageable in the future. The widespread access to real-time, high fidelity data on each individual’s health will reform health care by helping people live healthier lives and prevent disease.

To Enhance Patient Satisfaction & Engagement: IOT can increase patient satisfaction by optimizing surgical workflow. E. g. , informing about patient’s discharge from surgery to their families. It can increase patient engagement by allowing patients to spend more time interacting with their physicians as it reduces the need for direct patient-physician interaction as devices connected to the internet are delivering valuable data.

Recommendations

Perhaps the greatest benefit of IOT-enabled wearable healthcare devices is that they provide individuals with the information they need to gain better control over their health outcomes. Wearable devices are in high demand because they offer individuals greater visibility into their health status, allowing them to make more informed decisions about their health:

• Individuals can monitor different fitness, health, and wellness factors to track progress toward health goals.
• Those with health conditions that need to be closely monitored can use a wearable device to track important health indicators on a day-to-day basis.
• Patients can share data from their wearable devices with their healthcare providers to provide physicians and other medical staff with a more detailed understanding of conditions.
• Consumers can also connect their devices to social networks, which helps them motivate one another toward healthier living.