Latest Advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) — Part 3

IoT in Healthcare and Retail

IoT in Healthcare and Retail is now being used in the world. Now, we have Smart Hospitals, Smart Patient Monitoring Devices. We can even connect autonomous cars with hospitals so that patients’ health can be monitored. Smart Stores have many new features to engage customers and offer them a variety of services.

IoT in Healthcare

HealthCare sector has been using IoT applications in numerous services. We already have smart hospitals. In fact, IoT has potential to transform the health care services completely to the benefit of society at large. Doctors can monitor patients from remote. Patients need not come always to the hospital for routine checkup.

Wearable Devices

There are a number of wearable devices that help in determining the health status of patients. These wearable devices are IoT enabled and can help people for self-diagnosing as well as assist doctors to take care of patients. For Instance, a Sleep Analyser can help a person for tracking sleep pattern and manage stress level also.

Yet another device, a fitness tracker offers many useful features like heart rate monitoring, calories burned, workouts, active minutes, and climbed floors. A smart posture trainer can help people in correcting their posture and send notification using a smart phone app when it detects that you are slouching.

Smart shoes are helpful in indicating the blood pressure level of a person and also help in adjusting the blood pressure level automatically. The smart shoes can also determine health, fatigue, posture, steps and calories. Also, they can send personalized notification to wearer in order to prevent injury.

Smart Jewelry can help in analyzing sleep pattern as well as predict the stress level. These beautiful wearable can suggest the breathing exercise or meditation when a patient is in stress.

Smart Clothing or E-Textile uses the IoT enabled fabric that is capable of monitoring heart rate, respiration rate and temperature. Additionally, E-Textiles have applications in military operations where they can indicate the impact of bullets and can contact the control room automatically.

There is also a Nicotine Patch that help patients in getting rid of the habit gradually. This device can motivate patients by indicating their improvement.

Other Smart Services

Apart from IoT enabled wearable devices, there are other applications that the doctors and hospitals can use. One such application is outpatient monitoring. Doctors not only determine how many patients are there in waiting area but can also check their health status without physical checkup. Other IoT applications in health care sector are patient monitoring in wards, medical supply management, cleaning and disinfecting, and the contaminated waste management.

Retail Automation

As many people still buying from the physical stores, a number of IoT applications are emerging in recent years that can enhance the shopping experience of customers as well as facilitate the store owners. Cashless payment services are already there. The stores can have smart shelves that can display the updated prices as well as the ingredients of the items.

Automated checkouts can eliminate the queues. The items can have RFID tags and customers can determine the cost of purchase during checkout. Also, the customers can make payment through mobile app.

Stores can automate their supply chain also with the smart shelves indicate which items are depleting. Smart shelves can also indicate the popular items. Also the stores can prevent in-store thefts. Smart shelves can also display personalised discounts to frequent customers.