Thankful for IoT: Keeping Us Safe, Connected, and Productive

The winter holidays are near, and the year will soon come to a close. This week we’re preparing to celebrate American Thanksgiving, and we’re reflecting on how the Internet of Things (IoT) has helped us during a year that brought both a public health crisis and an economic crisis.

As we reflect on the role of IoT in our businesses and daily lives, we can’t help but feel thankful for the many ways IoT business solutions have helped us stay safe, connected, and productive during these trying times.

Keeping Us Safe and Healthy

While the benefits of IoT business solutions for connected health have been known for some time, this year has ushered in a time of “forced innovation.” The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a surge of connected health innovation and adoption across industry segments, including clinical drug trials and remote patient monitoring. 

Among the primary benefits of IoT for clinical drug trials is faster time to market, and because vaccine development generally takes over 10 years, this has been critical for researchers looking to get a COVID-19 vaccine approved in less than a year. In addition to developing new vaccines and therapeutics to prevent and treat COVID-19, the healthcare industry has had to develop innovative ways to keep healthcare workers and patients safe during treatment.

For patients with chronic disease, like diabetes, a positive COVID-19 test puts nurses and physicians at risk when getting routine blood glucose checks. Remote patient monitoring solutions, which have typically been used to monitor patients at home, are now being implemented in hospitals to reduce the number of routine check-ups needed when treating COVID-19 patients with chronic conditions. 

Keeping Us Connected When Apart

With quarantines, business closures, lockdowns, and social distancing measures, this year has kept many of us physically apart. Luckily, people are able to find some kind of face-to-face connection while apart through video conferencing technology. Some IoT companies, like Ericsson, are leveraging the IoT to help seniors stay connected with easy-to-use tablets that support video calling and photo sharing for older generations.

In addition to virtual social engagements, much of the workforce has gone remote as well. With a surge in remote work for many industries, IoT solutions for business continuity are helping companies keep their remote teams connected with VPN solutions and wireless failover.

Keeping Us Productive

In addition to pivoting to support a mostly remote workforce, businesses are having to adapt to the “new normal” workplace. Companies like Leash IT are providing platforms that deliver contact tracing and social distancing compliance capabilities, as well as IoT business solutions for temperature checks and mask detection.

Medical supply chains have felt the strain brought on by a significant uptick in demand for PPE, medical equipment, therapeutics, and other healthcare supplies. In response, the FDA proposed new requirements to help prevent and mitigate medical supply shortages, fuelling the adoption of IoT business solutions for asset monitoring and supply chain visibility.

Innovators and Changemakers

At KORE, we are proud to work with businesses using the IoT to do critical and innovative work. Our customers are the ones supporting clinical trials, developing medical devices, managing remote workforces, ensuring compliance, and monitoring assets that people need. 

We take our work as IoT enablers seriously, and we handle the complexity of deploying IoT business solutions so our customers and partners — the changemakers of the world — can focus on what they do best. We’re thankful for the work they do every day.

If you have an IoT business solution you need to get to market quickly, download our Comprehensive Guide to a Successful IoT Implementation to learn how to overcome IoT deployment challenges and prepare for success.