IoT healthcare solutions

Remote IoT device management for healthcare IoT solutions

Adopting large numbers of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices into your healthcare workflow can pose the challenge of efficiently managing them, especially remotely. When IoT devices were only entering the market, it was necessary to locate IoT gateways in close proximity to sensors, as only then could data be effectively gathered. Now, we have solutions that enable remote IoT device management, allowing for locating gateways away from sensors, easily onboarding and adding new IoMT devices, and updating and troubleshooting gateways at a distance.

Primarily, remote IoT device management is enabled via a wide range of modern communication protocols including LoRaWan, Wi-Fi, LwM2M, RFID, and MQTT. The choice of communication method depends on the type of devices used and the capabilities of the IoT gateway.

The flow for managing IoMT devices consists of a few critical stages:

• IoT sensors collect patient or clinical data and transfer it to the connectivity devices or IoT gateways that store this data in the cloud.

• Next comes data processing, which includes converting raw data into formats acceptable for further data analysis.

• Data analytics is the last step in IoT device management and usually involves providing healthcare practitioners with dashboards containing information about the patient’s condition or insights on medical assets.

Healthcare IoT solutions can be considered fully complete only if the collected data goes through the above-mentioned three-stage process.

4 practical steps to take for efficient IoT device management in healthcare

Here are four steps you can take to ensure effective remote management of your IoMT devices:

Step 1. Select healthcare IoT device providers with a robust infrastructure. You should look for IoMT device providers that have a well-established IoT infrastructure and a developed R&D department that constantly works on firmware improvements. It’s also essential for your IoMT device vendor to be FDA-approved and HIPAA-compliant.

Step 2. Choose an IoT device management platform. Major cloud providers offer a vast variety of IoT device management platforms that enable IoT device management from a single place. Such platforms include AWS IoT Core and Azure IoT. Importantly, once you choose an IoT cloud platform, you’ll need to make use of other services by the same cloud provider to ensure a seamless IoT management experience.

Step 3. Ensure synchronization between the cloud and IoT gateways. In most cases, cloud vendors provide you with all the necessary tools for quickly syncing between sensors, gateways, and the cloud, but often you’ll need to make certain workarounds to make this synchronization smooth and foolproof. As an experienced IoT solutions provider, Yalantis can ensure quick and secure synchronization with ease.

Step 4. Develop a user-facing IoT network management system. You can find many ready-made IoT management systems, but a custom IoT healthcare solution can have a user interface and features that precisely meet your medical practice’s needs for efficient and quick medical device monitoring. With a custom IoT control system, your staff can easily locate, configure, and update gateways using a convenient interface. Developing a custom IoT management web platform also involves providing support for long-running operations, as IoT equipment is known for its limited computing power.

Establishing a robust IoT management ecosystem is just as critical for medical practices with a small set of integrated devices as it is for large hospital networks with many IoMT devices across multiple healthcare facilities. With an IoT management ecosystem, you can ensure a consistent flow of actionable medical insights, stay updated on changes in your IoT network, and easily onboard and add new IoMT devices to further enhance your network.

The Yalantis IoT development team customizes every IoT solution to the needs of the particular healthcare practice, as each company has a different set of IoT devices. When you work with Yalantis, you get access to full-service healthcare IoT device integration, as we can assist you with each of the four steps of IoT management discussed above.