Internet of Things (IoT) in Biomedical Research

Internet of Things (IoT) is a relatively new technological concept that connects “Things” to the internet, thus enabling better access and connectivity of electronic devices. This concept has unlimited applications both in biomedical research and clinical practice. The Medical Internet of Things (MIoT) has gained increasing ground in the past few years. Dramatic progress has been achieved in establishing the hardware and software infrastructure required for a well-functioning technology. In the heart of this infrastructure lie wearable devices (Haghi et al., 2017). Interestingly, MIoT proved to be helpful in Covid-19 epidemic management. It was useful for patients, physicians, and hospital management systems (Singh et al., 2020).
However, it should be noted that MIoT remains a concept in continuous evolution. Many terms need to be more specific to unify the understanding of the published literature (Sadoughi et al., 2020). One of the major concerns is patients’ privacy. Patients need to be assured that there are sufficient safeguards that can keep their privacy while maintaining their function of collecting, transmission and sharing data (Alkhatib et al., 2018).
It is interesting to learn how biomedical researchers in low-resource settings could have an advantage from MIoT.

References
Alkhatib S, Waycott J, Buchanan G, Bosua R. Privacy and the Internet of Things (IoT) Monitoring Solutions for Older Adults: A Review. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2018;252:8-14. PMID: 30040675.
Haghi M, Thurow K, Stoll R. Wearable Devices in Medical Internet of Things: Scientific Research and Commercially Available Devices. Healthc Inform Res. 2017 Jan;23(1):4-15. doi: 10.4258/hir.2017.23.1.4. Epub 2017 Jan 31. PMID: 28261526; PMCID: PMC5334130.
Sadoughi F, Behmanesh A, Sayfouri N. Internet of things in medicine: A systematic mapping study. J Biomed Inform. 2020 Mar;103:103383. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2020.103383. Epub 2020 Feb 7. PMID: 32044417.
Singh RP, Javaid M, Haleem A, Suman R. Internet of things (IoT) applications to fight against COVID-19 pandemic. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020 Jul-Aug;14(4):521-524. doi: 10.1016/j.dsx.2020.04.041. Epub 2020 May 5. PMID: 32388333; PMCID: PMC7198990.

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