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Healthcare costs around the world
are rising as the population ages.
The proportion of the population of
the world aged 65 and over is set to
double over the next 25 years, from
a little over 7 per cent today to 15
per cent. In the developed world, the
rise will be even higher as average life
expectancy is already higher. Although
people will live longer, many will
live with chronic medical conditions
that require regular treatments and
consultations. The result is likely to
be a dramatic increase in the cost of
healthcare, whether financed by state
taxation or insurance costs.
A key issue is the amount of time
that people need to stay in hospital
after a treatment so that they can
be observed before receiving more
treatment or are considered healthy
enough to discharge. Hospital
treatment costs are much higher
than if the patient can stay at their
home and receive instead a series of
brief consultations from a nurse or
doctor. However, appropriate medical
staff is not always close enough to
allow travel to a surgery by a patient.
Specialist medical staff work in city
hospitals but in a developed nation a
quarter of the population will live in
rural areas and do not find it easy to
travel for consultations.
The stress of travelling to a surgery
to have measurements of heart rate,
blood pressure and other physical
attributes is stressful in itself and can
lead to situations where the patent
receives the wrong level of treatment
for their actual conditions. If doctors
had access to measurements taken
over a longer period during real-world
activities they would have a much
better idea of the patient’s progress.
Governments around the world have
also come to the realization that if
some chronic conditions, such as
type-two diabetes or cancer can be
prevented instead of needing acute
treatment, this will slow the relentless
rise in healthcare costs.
In both of these cases, information
technology in the form of the Internet
of Things (IoT) provides the core of
the solution. Wearable sensors and
portable monitoring systems have
the potential to extend the reach of
medical staff out to the home and
provide them with the ability to react
much more quickly to changes in the
patient’s condition and provide more
appropriate healthcare. At the same
time, because IT can be used to only
signal important changes received
over the IoT, overall costs are reduced
by not having doctors and nurses
perform consultations when they are
not necessary.
Using the IoT, sensors are deployed
around the patient’s body to the
points where they are needed. These
IoT promises smarter health
Randall Restle, Digi-Key Electronics
34 l New-Tech Magazine Europe