Why is IoT not catching on faster in healthcare?
BOSTON — Healthcare organizations tend to be more pessimistic than other industries about benefits the Internet of Things can bring for them, according to Stephanie Jernigan, assistant professor of in the operations management department at Boston College.
"The top two reasons why organizations are not taking advantage of IoT is analytics and the need to get better at handling great volumes of data," Jernigan said here at the HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Privacy & Security Forum.
Jernigan added that a small percentage of companies across multiple industries are wary of customer reaction, while others cited the difficulty of building a business case and the risk that whatever you put in place will not be useful in a few years.
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Intermountain CISO Karl West explained that one of the biggest changes IoT – and cloud computing for that matter – has caused is that the security perimeter is now essentially gone.
Another challenge particular to healthcare is how to securely get patients to use IoT devices that have the potential to improve their health.
"Patients will adopt tools when they don’t have to think about it," said Chad Wilson, director of IT security at Children’s National Medical Center.
On the provider side, Jernigan said that many are not sure how to apply insights to the business and operations side of things.
Jernigan added that industries, including healthcare, are moving forward with IoT devices and while 60 percent of organizations do not today have an IoT project underway, half of those are planning to launch one in the future.
"There will always be a new mousetrap," said Paul Martini, co-founder and chief architect of iboss Cybersecurity. "Fifty percent of the challenge is how to get those technologies in place."
Twitter: @SullyHIT
Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com
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