Artificial Intelligence in MedTech: How IoMT Solutions are Revolutionizing Diagnostics and Treatment

Global change in the healthcare approach- moving from reactive to proactive care 

Post Covid-19 pandemic, the mindset of people and their general lookout towards health have changed exponentially. Before COVID, the majority of cosmopolitans usually took a reactive care approach where they opted for healthcare services when they had difficulties or when they found visible symptoms.

Post-COVID, people across the globe have been taking a proactive healthcare approach where they use continuous and remote monitoring MedTech wearable devices and fitness trackers to track their vitals and get to know about the threats in advance.

All these wearable devices that can be used to collect medical-grade information accurately are also used by healthcare providers and health insurers. Commonly known as the IoMT devices, these devices are used to track patient vitals post visits and to ensure early detection of problems post surgeries and critical illnesses. 

Because of these changes, the use and adaptation of smart MedTech devices and IoMT connected wearable devices have increased from both the people as well as the healthcare providers. For instance, a group of hospitals from South England that serve around 500,000 people annually have started discharging their patients with wi-fi enabled armbands to track vitals such as respiratory rate, oxygen levels, pulse, blood pressure, and body temperature. (Source)

Capability Augmentation with AI in MedTech 

While remote monitoring and continuous monitoring are made possible for patients with IoMT and smart medical wearable devices, certain areas of healthcare need attention and where there are opportunities for better patient care. However, it is not possible to make certain opportunities accessible to patients affordably and conveniently when they are done manually.

For such areas of opportunities such as data accumulation from various sources, providing continuous preventive care and interventions, real-time access to information and others, instead of using a manual approach which is not even feasible in some of the use cases, Artificial Intelligence can play a vital role. 

With the help of AI-driven wearable, IoMT and MedTech devices; healthcare providers can generate better care opportunities that can reduce ER and re-admission visits as well as cost-effectively deliver treatment adherence.

To understand how AI can contribute to MedTech and IoMT development, below are certain use cases as to how AI can be employed for the IoMT solutions and their impact on diagnostics and treatment. 

Combining AI and IoMT solutions for Diagnostics and Treatment- Bringing ‘the Next’ in healthcare 

• Accurate diagnostics and data collection:

When a wearable is approved by a physician or a healthcare professional, they can define certain criteria or parameters of vitals that they wish to monitor and AI can help them not only in monitoring those personalized vitals for each patient, but it can also collect data from various sources and present a better and personalized health journey to the healthcare professionals and enable them to make informed decisions.

With the help of AI-driven wearable technologies, physicians can scan health data easily and can also get personalized alerts and reports for each patient helping them better diagnose patients with relevant, personalized, and remote vital health information. 

While continuous monitoring would not have been possible without wearable technology, the accumulation of accurate and personalized data would not have been seamlessly accessible without AI. Thus, with the help of AI in medical-grade smart and connected devices healthcare professionals can ensure accurate diagnostics and deliver personalized care with case-specific patient data accumulation from AI. 

• Lifestyle interventions and reminders:

Even when we talk about the general benefits of employing AI in healthcare, preventive care has been a major benefit of AI in healthcare. Similarly, when we talk about combining wearable technology with AI, it can help with lifestyle interventions and reminders to patients.

According to WHO, 60% of related factors to individual health and quality of life are correlated to lifestyle (source). This means that by making certain interventions and lifestyle changes in a person’s life as and when required, the person can avoid a lot of chronic diseases and their impact on their life. 

Since medical wearables are increasingly adopted by patients and they wear them every day, combining these devices with AI can be used to deliver lifestyle interventions and reminders! For instance, a patient who is suffering from high blood pressure not only needs medication, but also need to do certain exercises, reducing stress and performing meditation can help profoundly to keep things in check.

With the help of AI-driven wearable solutions, patients can get such alerts that are not just timed accurately based on physician’s advice, but these interventions and reminders for medication and certain lifestyle activities can also be based on vital signs shown by the patients.

• Better public health information with wearable AI-driven data representation: 

Along with clinical and physician-based applications of wearable devices, one major area where medical devices are increasingly used is Clinical Trials. Along with that, sensor-based data from medically approved devices can also be useful for Clinical Research Organizations! 

With the help of AI-driven wearable and IoMT devices, Clinical Trial officers and Clinical Researchers can use the data collected with medical devices and identify patterns, access data, and get personalized patient profile comparisons using AI! 

While medical devices and IoMT solutions help with collecting health vital information, AI can help with comparisons and better data representations or collecting relevant data with defined criteria of patient profile comparison. 

AI-driven Accurate Predictions 

One of the biggest applications of AI in combination with medical devices is to provide accurate predictions to patients as well as healthcare professionals. When devices are designed for specific use cases and they cover all the integral aspects that must be monitored, predictions can be facilitated with the help of AI!

While there are many different methods of providing such predictions, the benefit of employing AI for the job is that it can diagnose these parameters in real time and deliver accurate predictions with “net-zero marginal cost!” 

AI is for both- custom-tailored as well as comprehensive care 

As we can see when it comes to IoMT and AI, it can be used for both personalized care as well as a holistic approach that extends beyond clinical and physician care! While wearable technology breaks the boundaries of clinical walls and facilitates remote care, AI breaks the data silos and augments the medical data reach. All it takes is a medical challenge and a skilled medical device that is powered by AI!