Managed IoT Services for Connected Health Solutions

According to research conducted by McKinsey & Company, telehealth usage in April 2020 spiked to a record high of 78 times higher than in February 2020 due to the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though telehealth usage has since decreased, it has stabilised at 38 times higher than before the pandemic began. McKinsey research also suggests an increase in spending $250 million due to a move from on-site to fully virtual medicine.

With technology leading the way in the healthcare space, providers are continuing to look for solutions that remain reliable to monitor patients and deliver quality care – and this is where IoT managed services takes action.

IoT managed services streamline the challenging process of deploying, managing, and scaling solutions with hardware, connectivity, and logistics to help speed up critical deployments in the market.

Decentralised Clinical Trials

Some everyday practices of virtual healthcare include prescription management and decentralised clinical trials (DCTs). The purpose of DCTs is to eliminate unnecessary site visits for patients, resulting in more efficient and cost-effective operations for the provider.

Contract Research Organisations (CROs) provide services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies, and CROs help arrange protocols in DCTs. IoT plays a role by powering sensors in medical smart weight scales, thermometers, and pulse oximeters for DCTs. Device management, connectivity, and logistic services all aid DCTs with IoT managed services by reducing connected health challenges.

3 Connected Health Challenges

1. Lifecycle Management:
   • Technology lifecycle management in the healthcare space is important because it streamlines budgets and delivers better patient care. This process creates greater visibility to help identify potential issues before they become a problem.
2. Regulatory & Compliance Management:
   • A proven partner ecosystem helps ensure your solution is compliant throughout the lifespan of your deployment. And as deployments can be global - its important to know and adhere to regulations, such as in United States with Healthcare Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA), Medical Device Directive (MDD) through to European directives like WEEE 2012/19/EU Directive Compliance.
3. Forward & Reverse Logistics:
   • Forward and reverse logistics includes managing the procurement, set up and deployment of connected devices, and processing the return of those items as appropriate including the cleaning, updating, and returning to stock or properly disposing of those items per customer specifications. This poses a challenge in the healthcare industry by making it more difficult to monitor inventory and asset recovery.

Healthcare IoT Experts

KORE is a leading industry expert in managed IoT services for Connected Health solutions. We specialise in managed services for decentralised clinicals trials, remote patient monitoring, and mobile personal emergency response systems.

KORE offers solutions that are regulatory compliant with the FDA so you can feel confident in your decisions. For example, managed mobile device management (MDM) solutions help monitor and control healthcare devices in a secure manner. Finding resilient wireless connectivity, network management, and hardware procurement for reduced costs doesn’t have to be difficult – KORE is here to help.

To learn more about IoT solutions for connected health, download our datasheet, “Managed IoT Services”.