Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
In discussions on the potential of the Industrial Internet of Things to optimize the performance of assets commonly found in the plant or elsewhere in the manufacturing ecosystem, ought we not to discuss the optimization of the human, the ultimate asset? Both within manufacturing and in everyday life, the “maintenance” of humans is crucial to development of economy and society. Companies such as BP have been experimenting with wearable technology to track the vital signs of workers. Other companies are deploying interactive smart hardhats to warn workers of impending heatstroke before any physical symptoms occur. But what about outside of the workplace?
On the TV show Shark Tank, entrepreneurs pitch ideas to successful investors with the hopes of securing investment. I recently watched an episode in which new parents demonstrated an intelligent changing bed known as “Hatch Baby,” which tracks the baby’s weight, duration of its sleep, frequency of defecation, and other measurements. The goal is to alleviate or identify concerns about any developmental problems of the child, thereby empowering the parent(s). Hatch Baby ended up securing a $250,000 note from investor Chris Sacca.
Devices already exist to track heart rate, sleep quality, steps climbed, blood pressure, and innumerable other measures. For those with a diagnosed medical issue, data can be extremely valuable. Many migraine suffers keep logs tracking the progression of their migraines in an effort to identify food, chemical, or other triggers. Some may be easy to see, but subtler relationships between pain and certain triggers may be unlocked only with an analytics engine.
Several issues need to be sorted out as this market takes off. Who owns the data associated with B2C IoT healthcare devices? Who is responsible for monitoring the data? The consumer? Primary Care? The data typically falls into an abyss, rendered meaningless by the inability of the consumer to deduce trends and the lack of any coordinated effort from the healthcare system to take in the data and integrate it into the patients’ health record, which may not even be digitized in the first place.
In my view, IoT should be a fundamental part of governmental initiative to reduce healthcare costs by using data to generate risk of developing preventable chronic diseases, help patients optimize the management of current conditions, assess measurable side effects of drugs, and to identify trends among the population leading to more frequent use of medical facilities.
On the TV show Shark Tank, entrepreneurs pitch ideas to successful investors with the hopes of securing investment. I recently watched an episode in which new parents demonstrated an intelligent changing bed known as “Hatch Baby,” which tracks the baby’s weight, duration of its sleep, frequency of defecation, and other measurements. The goal is to alleviate or identify concerns about any developmental problems of the child, thereby empowering the parent(s). Hatch Baby ended up securing a $250,000 note from investor Chris Sacca.
Devices already exist to track heart rate, sleep quality, steps climbed, blood pressure, and innumerable other measures. For those with a diagnosed medical issue, data can be extremely valuable. Many migraine suffers keep logs tracking the progression of their migraines in an effort to identify food, chemical, or other triggers. Some may be easy to see, but subtler relationships between pain and certain triggers may be unlocked only with an analytics engine.
Several issues need to be sorted out as this market takes off. Who owns the data associated with B2C IoT healthcare devices? Who is responsible for monitoring the data? The consumer? Primary Care? The data typically falls into an abyss, rendered meaningless by the inability of the consumer to deduce trends and the lack of any coordinated effort from the healthcare system to take in the data and integrate it into the patients’ health record, which may not even be digitized in the first place.
In my view, IoT should be a fundamental part of governmental initiative to reduce healthcare costs by using data to generate risk of developing preventable chronic diseases, help patients optimize the management of current conditions, assess measurable side effects of drugs, and to identify trends among the population leading to more frequent use of medical facilities.