IoT tech: preventing errors in health care

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the United States alone. In fact, more than 250,000 Americans die every year from such oversight. Potentially fatal medical mistakes range from surgical complications that go unrecognised to mix-ups in medications dispensed to patients. However, because death certificates usually don’t register medical errors, the real number is never tallied, leading to a severe underestimation of the significance of the issue. In 2010, a Singaporean couple who just had a baby via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) were shocked when their baby was born with a complexion markedly different from their own and, upon further investigation, it was also found that their daughter’s blood type was also different. They sought a DNA test and the result confirmed their worst fear: they were victims of a medical mix-up. A stranger’s genetic specimen had been used to fertilise the mother’s eggs. Further investigation uncovered lapses in procedures and human error when the specimens were handled by two embryologists. Minimising the human mistakes without removing the human touch While healthcare facilities and practitioners have stringent procedures put in place to avoid similar errors, there is always a slight chance of ‘human error’. In the case of the DNA mix-up, the embryologists deviated from the protocols. Medical-related mistakes are often committed because medical staff suffer from exhaustion from long hours of working round the clock, or are distracted by the multitude of tasks they had to perform simultaneously — factors that are hard to control. It’s clear that the industry needs a fix that is quick and effective, and lightens the load for medical staff. This is where the Internet of Things (IoT) comes to the rescue. In health care, IoT builds a world where smart labels such as barcodes, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and sensors fixed to objects and linked to the internet give them a digital voice.