IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - September/October 2019 - 28

IoT-Based Smart Healthcare

Figure 2. Personalization and autonomy of health data.

business and research domain. For example,
research has focused on the development of
infrastructure as a service, platform as a service,
and software as a service. In addition, they will
also be of great importance for the new concept
and application of c-healthcare. Sensor network
or body area network is another key element in chealthcare, which helps gather multiple data
from patients and the environment in time. Most
of the applications in c-healthcare require to provide sensors that can capture data (e.g., ECG signal). Privacy and security issues are always a
challenge in healthcare system. If the real-time
captured data are captured by hackers, the
wealth and safety of patients will be threatened.
Thus, a secure and reliable security system need
to be explored by both business company and
researchers. There are also some other related
field, which are beyond the scope of this paper.

HEALTH DATA AND ANALYTIC CARE
Healthcare is a data-intensive domain where
a large amount of medical data are collected,
stored, and accessed every day (see Figure 2). A
User can set his/her own personal goals. According to these goals, the healthcare providers will
design a corresponded plan for each user. Sensors record the user's implementation of the
plan and report the record to healthcare consultants. Thus, the healthcare consultants can
adjust the plan in time based on the record. The
user can also provide feedback to the healthcare
consultants to help customize the plan. As a
result, users can take totally autonomous
actions on their own health management.
With the massive medical data, healthcare
moves toward patient-centered, data-value-based
care.6 In a value-based healthcare model, a

healthcare team expands to include patients, doctors, nurses, health coaches, nutritionists, and
other nontraditional members. The healthcare
provider will be rewarded based on the value that
they create, instead of just the service amount
that they deliver. Healthcare teams are rewarded
for helping patients to improve their health,
reducing the effects and incidence of chronic disease, and live healthier lives in an evidence-based
way. There are several benefits of value-based
healthcare deliveries. First, patients can achieve
better health with less expenditures. Analytic
healthcare model facilitates the patients to
recover from the illnesses or injuries in a faster
and efficient way. Besides, a win-win situation can
be achieved between medical services providers
and the patients. The quality-of-services increase
without the loss of services' capabilities. In addition, prediction model and real-time risk management will significantly prevent the spread in
society. The citizen will become healthier and
bear lower medical expenses.
Data interoperability is the one of the key factors in smart healthcare systems. One of the critical challenges for enabling interoperability is
the availability of data standards. IEEE messaging standards7 are for bedside instruments,
which is the home of the medical information
bus. The Digital Imaging and Communications in
Medicine Messaging Standard8 is for radiology
images. Logical Observation Identifiers Names
and Codes are applied for identifying medical
laboratory observations. Health level (HL7)9 is
the most widely used messaging standard for
clinical data. Although these standards have
been accepted by more and more people and
there are considerably more attentions given to
the matter of data standards and interoperability over the last few years, there are still issues
and challenges. For example, intellectual properties are always being concerned by manufacturers and services providers. To protect their
properties, all data and resources are encrypted.
The third-parties are not allowed to access the
information.10 These problems should be better
addressed in the future.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Although smart healthcare will bring many
benefits, it will also become more vulnerable to

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