The prototype of healthcare companies in India is changing.
The technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented and virtual reality and telecommunications are now amalgamated into health care services, giving rise to better healthcare facilities with more precision and efficiency.
And this got merely possible because of IoT technology. The Internet of Things (IoT) is able to change the way we work and live. The ecosystem of connected physical objects, which are accessible via the internet, is called IoT. If IoT comes to its full potential, it will change all areas of our lives.
This can be testified by looking at the type of change in the healthcare sector where paper and pen are the primary means of documenting information of patients for decades. But now, the healthcare industry is developing in a new way.
Digital health care applications allow patients to plan their appointments without having to wait for a receptionist or call the doctor’s office. Also, it allows doctors to transfer information with patients via smartphones.
How IoT is changing the Healthcare Industry
List of IoT-based Healthcare Startups in India
1. Spectral Insights
2. Forus Health
3. Cardiac Design Labs
4. Bagmo
Conclusion
FAQs – IoT Healthcare Companies
How IoT is changing the Healthcare Industry
There are so many impediments to the growth of the healthcare system. It includes the increasing cost of treatment, shortage of medical professionals, the lack of adequate infrastructure, lack of access to quality healthcare in rural and remote areas, and the increase in chronic diseases. The IoT healthcare startups in India can help to meet the demands of today’s increasing patients.
Some of the benefits of IoT in the healthcare sector are:
1. Improves the quality of healthcare
IoT healthcare startups enable easy access to healthcare data of patients via simultaneous reporting and monitoring through connected devices. It will enhance the ability of healthcare providers to offer customized treatments for patients and evidence-based treatments. Also, It ensures the wider coverage of patients and a shorter treatment cycle.
2. Reduced medical costs and errors
IoT helps to monitor health parameters using mobile health applications and diagnostic tools. Also, it gives live reports to doctors via interconnected devices. Medical personnel can make decisions using this collection of health data. It will reduce medical errors. As a result, hospital stays, re-admissions, and unnecessary visits to the hospital will be reduced.
3. Healthcare accessibility in rural areas
The IoT can increase the reach of quality healthcare to rural places via remote health monitoring. IoT enabled patients who live in remote villages to connect with doctors in urban specialty hospitals from their homes.
Yash Gupta
List of IoT-based Healthcare Startups in India
In recent years, there has been limited growth in the Indian healthcare sector with the country lagging behind in many health indicators.
Currently, India is the second-most populated country in the world. And 20% of the global disease burden is in India itself. Also, infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates are high in India. The Internet of Things (IoT) based healthcare companies have the potential to transform our healthcare system into an efficient, integrated, and patient-centric system.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has got the attention of everyone in India. The Indian government announced that it plans to make a $15 billion IoT market in the country. Medical Council of India reported that the doctor-patient ratio is 1: 1674 in India. In this situation, IoT can be a great leveler.
Some of the IoT-based healthcare startups in India are mentioned below:-
1. Spectral Insights
Spectral Insights is a technology company providing solutions and systems to solve the challenges in the healthcare industry. The company was co-founded by Prasanth, Dipankar Das, Sumit Nath, Raghubansh Gupta, and Suhash Gerald in 2016. They have created a platform that provides innovative imaging, advanced analytics (AI/ML), and digital microscopy for hospitals, pharma R&D, and clinical laboratories. The headquarters of the company is situated in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
The company operates with the pathology department to give any time access to high-quality digital slide images (blood smear, biopsies, TB, pap smear, etc.). Also, it offers a comprehensive suite of analytical tools to their clients that improve accuracy, and objectivity. Spectral Insight is a multi-faceted platform with spectroscopy, optics, artificial intelligence, algorithms, data management, visualization, and cloud computing.
Arbaaz sayed
2. Forus Health
Forus Health is founded by a group of engineers in 2010. It is a medical technology startup with a goal to eliminate avoidable blindness. Over the years, they have developed technology solutions to increase affordability and access to eye care. The first product of the company is 3nethra classic. It is a portable and compact non-mydriatic fundus camera used for taking digital images of the anterior (cornea) and posterior (retina) segments of the eye.
The device will help to identify common eye problems such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, cataract, ARMD, etc. Also, it is integrated with a cloud-based telemedicine platform that enables remote diagnosis. There are 40 million people who are blind in the world out of which 15 million people are living in India. The major reasons for this problem are the high cost of treatment/surgery, limited access to eye care facilities, and lack of awareness. The aim of Forus Health is to utilize technology to reduce diagnostic costs, increase access, and raise awareness.
Rishabh Rathi
3. Cardiac Design Labs
Cardiac Design Labs is founded by Anand Madanagopal in 2011. The headquarters of the company is located in Bengaluru, Karnataka. They offer diagnosis and cardiac monitoring by deploying intelligent systems that give automatic remote reporting. It saves both cost and time. Their aim is to provide advanced diagnostics to the peoples in an affordable way. The company has created a wearable device named MIRCaM (Mobile Intelligent Remote Cardiac Monitor).
That device is able to provide real-time cardiac monitoring and diagnosis in remote settings. In India, there are only 4000 cardiologists for 64 million cardiac patients. Anand Madanagopal believes MIRCaM can bridge this gap. They have a core team of experts, from different disciplines, including material science engineers, cardiologists, software and system hardware engineers.
4. Bagmo
Bagmo Pvt Ltd. is founded by Ashfaq Ashraf, Anas Dalinatakam, and Arshad KA in March 2017. The headquarters of the company is located in Kochi, Kerala. The aim of the company is to eliminate the lack of blood availability in rural India. They created a blood bag monitoring device. It will monitor the temperature of blood bags during storage and transportation. Each blood donation will be recorded on the cloud platform. After the testing, the components (blood cells, plasma, platelets) will be stored in separate bags.
This B2B company helps to improve communication and logistics issues. Also, it helps reduce wastage at blood collection centers. An RFID (radio frequency identification) card is connected to each bag. The refrigerator that stores the bag and its unique ID will be stored in the cloud. In blood requirement cases, the individual/hospital needs to enter the details in the cloud. Then the blood bag monitoring device shows which bag is suitable for the requirement and in which refrigerator that bag is stored.
Shubham Kumar
Conclusion
So far we have seen what advantage IoT brings to the healthcare industry. This gives a gist of how IoT is going to be the future of the healthcare industry by solving the pain points of patients.
IoT with its far-reaching benefits and patient-centric approach has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare sector in India. But for making a maximum result, support infrastructures should be more strengthened. It includes a low cost of IoT-enabled devices, internet availability and reliability, strong IT framework, data security and privacy, and seamless user experience.
FAQs – IoT Healthcare Companies
What does IoT mean in Healthcare?
IoT (Internet of Things) enables healthcare professionals to keep a watch on their patient’s conditions and connects actively via smart devices. IoT devices are tagged with sensors to track the real-time location of medical equipment like wheelchairs, defibrillators, nebulizers, oxygen pumps and other monitoring equipment.
What is the role of IoT in health and fitness monitoring?
IoT will be the future for monitoring the patient’s health. As the combination of IoT and wearable devices like fitness bands helps to monitor and improve their health. Moreover, IoT based healthcare system provides service in a quick manner which would help to save millions of lives.
How does IoT affect our life?
IoT-enabled devices and sensors are helping us in making our life easier by making everything possible from our smart devices. One does not have to put extra effort into spying on any smart appliances. It can be monitored by their smartphones from anywhere. It also helps to reduce air pollution, waste management, improve agriculture and food supply.
Is IoT the future?
The future of IoT has the potential to be limitless. Advances to the industrial internet will be accelerated through increased network agility, integrated artificial intelligence (AI), and the capacity to deploy, automate, orchestrate and secure diverse use cases at hyper-scale.
What are the main social impacts of IoT?
IoT devices impact society in a meaningful way. Smart homes and offices can save energy costs by controlling the electricity or temperature when one is away from home or work, and they can offer better security by constant surveillance and taking proactive action in case of a security breach.
Which companies are working on IoT in India?
Nearly all companies are shifting towards IoT. Some big companies are:-
- TCS
- Infosys
- Hyperlink InfoSystem
- Wipro
- Tech Mahindra
- LTI
- HCL Tech
- Mphasis
How companies are using IoT?
Companies are using IoT for the following purposes:-
- To improve customer satisfaction by providing instant support through the integration of chatbots and artificial intelligence with IoT.
- Better inventory management and tracing of assets by embedding surveillance system with IoT.
- To gather information about the customers in order to study their requirements, buying behavior and the scope of improvement.
- To check the performance of their product or service.
- IoT allows companies to facilitate omnichannel services.
- To obtain real-time data of customers for better decision-making by minimizing the risk and cost.
What are the different ways in which IoT devices are used in healthcare?
IoT devices offer a number of opportunities for hospitals to monitor their patients and patients to monitor themselves.
- Remote patient monitoring has become the most common application of IoT devices for healthcare.
- Glucose monitoring has become easy now. Patients can monitor their glucose levels on their smart devices.
- Heart rate monitoring can also be done easily via IoT devices with approx. 90% of accuracy.
- The wearable fitness band is also an IoT device that helps to monitor or track the physical activities of the person. It also monitors their heart rate, sleep quality, step counts and much more.
