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IoMT AND PERSONALIZED MEDICINE
A Paradigm Shift in Healthcare that Tailors Treatments and Medical Devices to Individuals.
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The healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving, fueled by the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).1 For medical device manufacturers, this presents a strategic opportunity to unlock new growth and impact the future of personalized medicine.
IoMT is creating a new standard in healthcare delivery- one that is personalized, precise, and more efficient. By collecting, analyzing, and interpreting health data, IoMT devices provide healthcare professionals with valuable insights. Shifting from a one-size-fits-all clinical approach to a more personalized and informed approach to patient care.
Personalized medicine is a tailored healthcare system,2 with clinical decisions, practices, treatment, or medical devices and products being adapted to the individual. This emerging practice of medicine3 uses an individual’s genetic profile to inform decisions about disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. It aims to predict the most effective treatments for patients based on genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors.
How IoMT Devices are Facilitating Personalized Medicine
The role of IoMT devices in personalized medicine is central and profound. These devices are designed to provide real-time, accurate, precise health data that healthcare professionals require to understand each patient’s unique and individualized needs.4
IoMT devices, such as smart implants, remote patient monitoring devices, smart pills, and other connected devices, collect and transfer comprehensive patient data, including medication adherence and vital signs. This data enables healthcare providers to carry out personalized treatment plans, deliver preventative care, and ultimately reduce medical costs.
The integration of Artificial intelligence (AI) with IoMT devices is advancing the capabilities of personalized medicine. AI algorithms can identify trends and patterns that might not be noticeable, reducing human error and creating added value to enhance operational efficiency.
IoMT unlocks opportunities for structural changes in the delivery and quality of care patients receive. MedTech companies can leverage IoMT to increase customer satisfaction and reduce infrastructure costs.
Examples of IoMT Facilitating Personalized Medicine to Provide Tailored Treatments to Individuals
- Smart healthcare ecosystem: Developing and building an HSDP allows healthcare professionals to collaborate closely with their patients. For example, the Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform5 connects services and devices around a common platform, supporting fast and effective decision-making. Connected Cloud health applications securely store and share data, connect devices and data, accumulate clinical and consumer data, support analysis, and create solutions that generate actionable data.
- Remote real-time patient monitoring: Medtronic recently received FDA approval (April 2023) for an automated insulin delivery system (AID).6 The SmartGuard7 algorithm automates insulin delivery with predictive, personalized diagnostics in an adaptable, real-time way. A Spyglass Consulting Group study8 found that 88% of providers surveyed have invested or are investigating investments in these technologies due to their high efficiency.
- Timely and accurate diagnosis: For example, Researchers at Stanford University9 have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that visually detects and potentially diagnoses skin cancer.
Challenges that Still Need to be Addressed
While IoMT devices present numerous novel opportunities, challenges, such as data security, interoperability, data management, scalability, regulation, and standardization, must be addressed by medical device manufacturers.
- Data management: To successfully implement personalized medicine, large amounts of complex data, not limited to patient records, diagnosis, and real-time monitoring, must be generated.10 Big data needs to be effectively processed and managed. Thus, healthcare organizations and MedTech companies must develop robust data management strategies, including processing, analysis capabilities, and storage, to acquire meaningful insights.
- Scalability and upgradation: As personalized medicine expands across the healthcare system, the scalability of IoMT devices, systems, and services is vital. MedTech companies and providers will need to plan for future scalability and upgradation requirements to accommodate the number of devices and services required to achieve precision medicine.
- Regulation and standardization: Regulations and standards are paramount to safeguarding patient privacy, data security, and ethical practices. Developing and implementing robust regulatory frameworks and standards is essential to foster and rebuild trust and drive widespread adoption.
- Privacy and security of data: With large amounts of real-time data generated, there is ambiguity surrounding data regulation and ownership,11 creating a vulnerability that may be susceptible to cyberattacks. Safeguarding the privacy and security of patient health information is imperative.
- Interoperability: Big data collected from medical devices and services are useless if they cannot be unified and computed to generate clinically relevant and meaningful results. In order to bring about the benefits of personalized medicine, all smart devices and systems must be interoperable with one another.
- Ethical Issues: Despite recent advantages, ethical considerations are still a significant challenge. Ethical challenges that still need to be overcome include the knowledge gap and informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and the availability of health services.12
Successfully addressing these challenges requires effective and open collaboration among providers, manufacturers, healthcare organizations, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders. Only then may the potential of personalized medicine be fully realized, leading to improved patient care and a patient-centric and efficient healthcare system at a reduced cost.
The Future of Personalized Medicine and MedTech
There are exciting trends and opportunities in the Medtech industry that can be leveraged to drive a new era of innovation and personalized medicine.
- Advancements in medical devices: The Medtech industry is experiencing a change in approach to innovation. Cutting-edge technologies, such as smart devices, enhance efficacy, precision, and patient care. Robotics, bioelectronics, and nanotechnology13 are opening new boundaries, providing healthcare professionals with the tools to address complex medical challenges.
- The intersection of AI and data: The future belongs to those who can unlock the full potential of the vast amounts of healthcare data generated and transmitted by the MedTech Industry. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)14 have the ability to analyze large amounts of data, extracting meaningful insights that drive evidence-based decision-making.
- Ecosystems and collaboration: Collaboration and partnerships between healthcare providers, MedTech companies, startups, and research institutions are cultivating an ecosystem of innovation. Developing and adopting disruptive technologies aligned with real-world needs can be accelerated by leveraging collective resources, expertise, and perspectives.
- Empowering patient-centric care: Personalized medicine, biomarkers, and genomics are laying the foundations for tailored treatment strategies.
By seizing these opportunities, MedTech companies are strategically positioned to contribute significantly to advancing and facilitating personalized medicine.
Final Word
By continuing to solve the problems plaguing the healthcare system and driving innovation, the MedTech industry is at the forefront of delivering more affordable and high-quality healthcare.15 By embracing disruptive technologies, such as genomics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchains, MedTech companies will increase patients’ access to improved diagnostics, medicines, treatment, and care.
As the healthcare sector evolves, MedTech companies will need to link with IoMT and other disruptive technologies to position themselves as essential facilitators of healthcare that is predictive, personalized, preventative, and participatory rather than merely reactive.
Medical device manufacturers should look to embrace IoMT to not only shape the future of healthcare but also secure their own success. By building meaningful partnerships and encouraging innovation, the next generation of medical devices will empower patients and redefine personalized medicine.
References
1. Internet of Medical Things – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics. www.sciencedirect.com. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/internet-of-medical-things
2. Louca S. Personalized medicine – a tailored health care system: challenges and opportunities. Croatian Medical Journal. 2012;53(3):211-213. doi:https://doi.org/10.3325/cmj.2012.53.211
3. National Human Genome Research Institute. Personalized Medicine. Genome.gov. Published 2022. https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Personalized-Medicine
4. Medtech and the Internet of Medical Things. Deloitte United Kingdom. https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/life-sciences-and-healthcare/articles/medtech-and-the-internet-of-medical-things.html
5. Healthcare compliant Cloud solutions. Philips. https://www.philips.co.in/healthcare/innovation/about-health-suite
6. MiniMedTM 780G System. Medtronic Diabetes. Published April 21, 2023. https://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/products/minimed-780g-insulin-pump-system
7. Understanding CGM and SmartGuardTM Technology. Medtronic Diabetes. Published November 13, 2020. https://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/customer-support/minimed-770g-system-support/cgm-smartguard-technology
8. Malkary G. Healthcare without Bounds: Trends in Remote Patient Monitoring 2019 TITLE: Trends in Trends in Remote Patient Monitoring 2019 AUTHOR: Spyglass Consulting Group. https://www.spyglass-consulting.com/Abstracts/Spyglass_RPM2019_abstract.pdf
9. University S. Artificial intelligence used to identify skin cancer. Stanford News. Published January 25, 2017. https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/25/artificial-intelligence-used-identify-skin-cancer/
10. Batko K, Ślęzak A. The Use of Big Data Analytics in Healthcare. Journal of Big Data. 2022;9(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00553-4
11. Singh AK, Firoz N, Tripathi A, Singh KK, Choudhary P, Vashist PC. Chapter 7 – Internet of Things: from hype to reality. ScienceDirect. Published January 1, 2020. Accessed December 13, 2023. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780128213261000073
12. Sedda G, Gasparri R, Spaggiari L. Challenges and innovations in personalized medicine care. Future Oncology. 2019;15(29):3305-3308. doi:https://doi.org/10.2217/fon-2019-0284
13. 10 Groundbreaking Medical Device Innovations. www.medicalengineers.co.uk. Published September 11, 2023. https://www.medicalengineers.co.uk/10-groundbreaking-medical-device-innovations
14. Kakhi K, Alizadehsani R, Kabir HMD, Khosravi A, Nahavandi S, Acharya UR. The internet of medical things and artificial intelligence: trends, challenges, and opportunities. Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering. 2022;42(3):749-771. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbe.2022.05.008
15. Medtech and the Internet of Medical Things How Connected Medical Devices Are Transforming Health Care.; 2018. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/tw/Documents/life-sciences-health-care/Medtech%20and%20the%20Internet%20of%20Medical%20Things.pdf