The internet of medical things (IMoT) can provide an extra pair of eyes to help doctors in their diagnoses, according to Borut Kastelic, business development manager for medical at EBV Elektronik.

Speaking at last week’s Embedded World conference in Nuremberg, he said connectivity was everywhere and that the medical world was not an exception.

“We found during Covid that there were not enough medical staff to go round, and IoMT provided an answer,” he said.

Moving on from the pandemic, practices that were forced on the medical industry have now become common. Doctors have found benefits in remotely monitoring patients.

“Hospitals need to release beds quickly for other patients,” he said. “Now they can monitor the patients remotely over a secure network.”

He said this would transform how we saw healthcare in the future.

“We are moving in that direction,” he said. “IoMT is not just a smart patch on your body; it is so much more than that.”

However, he said the technology to do this should be secure by design.

“Don’t design and then add on security,” he said. “This is important to protect against data breaches and to protect patient outcomes. Data have to be encrypted. There must be access control so only allowed personnel can get access. And there should be regular software updates.”

Another factor driving IoMT take up was an ageing population. People are living longer and thus more care is needed for the elderly.

But he said one of the best outcomes for deploying IoMT technology was it enabled early intervention if something went wrong.

“It can provide more accurate diagnoses,” he said. “It relieves the burden on the healthcare system. It can save money by increasing clinical efficiency. And you can bring healthcare to remote locations.”

And he said it could help doctors, though some were still afraid of it.

“It is like having an extra pair of eyes looking at the data,” he said.

For more information on EBV Elektronik’s medical offerings, go to: my.avnet.com/ebv/solutions/markets/industrial-scientific-and-medical/medical.