The Internet of Things is made up of small computing devices with unique IDs connected together through a network and performing specific tasks. In healthcare that can mean monitoring building temperatures, air flow, medical devices or even the health of a patient in or out of a healthcare facility.
Because of their ability to independently communicate data, there’s potential for eliminating direct human interaction with systems equipped with IoT devices and central data respositories, automating processes and increasing efficiency and data accuracy.
A Gartner survey of 511 U.S.-based enterprise IT managers, released in January, revealed that IoT adoption is becoming mainstream. Eleven percent of those surveyed worked in healthcare enterprises, and 86% of those respondents reported having an IoT architecture in place for most lines of business.
The survey of organizations with annual revenues of more than $100 million also revealed that 79% of the healthcare providers are already using IoT in their production processes.
Healthcare CIOs’ budgeting for IoT is on par with that of other industries leading the IoT-adoption charge, including manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, energy, retail and transportation. In healthcare, according to Gartner, there has been 10% growth in budgeting for IoT in each of the past two years, with a 13% budget increase for the next fiscal year.