Introduction

  • 1 minute

The MedTech service is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) within the Azure Health Data Services. The MedTech service with the FHIR service helps you import and maintain data from Internet of Things (IoT) digital health devices. It helps you ingest IoT data from devices, converted to FHIR® resources, stored in a secure and compliance cloud environment that's highly scalable, and then queried and displayed for real-world action. This helps IoT data scenarios for remote patient monitoring such as virtual care, asynchronous care, and decentralized clinical trials.

The MedTech service is built to help customers that are dealing with the challenge of gaining relevant insights from device data coming in from multiple and diverse sources. No matter the device or structure, the MedTech service normalizes that device data into a common format, allowing the end user to then easily capture trends, run analytics, and build Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. In the enterprise healthcare setting, the MedTech service is used in the context of remote patient monitoring, virtual health, and clinical trials.

Wearable and other IoT devices

Wearable devices can help monitor key metrics that enable health entities to better analyze and plan patient care. Interoperability facilitates personalized, distributed care through IoT devices by allowing organizations to convert data into a unified format and ultimately take action on it. The proliferation of connected IoT devices enables unprecedented volumes of data to be captured. To derive meaning from that disparate data and incorporate it into workflows for health, interoperable systems must separate the signal from the noise.

Some devices produce high velocity data, while others share low velocity data. High velocity data, such as continuous near real-time vitals, produces data at such a rapid pace that it likely needs special processing to allow it to be usable. Low velocity data, such as weekly weigh-ins, still needs to be processed, but the lower volume is easier to use. Numerous systems and devices can exchange messaging in near real-time and can enable:

  • Proactive patient care management with analytics.

  • Patient feedback through mobile devices.

  • Changes to payor risk structures.

  • Prevention of critical equipment downtime.

Diagram of medical devices such as HoloLens, heart rate monitor, glucose monitor, smart watch, ingestible sensor, and smart shoes mapped to the corresponding area of the patient's body where the device might be targeting.

Other IoT measurement devices might include:

  • Handheld devices

  • Blood pressure cuffs

  • Glucose monitors

  • Wearables

  • Pacemakers

  • Connected inhalers

  • Ventilators

  • Electrocardiogram

  • Ultrasound

  • Thermometers

  • Other connected devices

With IoT devices, patients might observe improved outcomes, especially with managing chronic conditions. While the best way to remediate most chronic conditions is often with activity, diet, and medications, it's evident that the top categories can also benefit from the use of a wide range of IoT devices.

Heath care workers can use proactive monitoring and (near) real-time analytics to improve patient care for the most common of health conditions. Given the average cost of doctor visits, inpatient stays, and outpatient emergency visits, IoT device use has the potential to yield improved health outcomes at scale.

Diagram of Risks and barriers, Measure and monitor, and Improve outcomes.