The impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on the advancement of the healthcare industry is immense. The ushering of the Medicine 4.0 has resulted in an increased effort to develop platforms, both at the hardware level as well as the underlying software level. This vision has led to the development of Healthcare IoT (H-IoT) systems. The basic enabling technologies include the communication systems between the sensing nodes and the processors; and the processing algorithms for generating an output from the data collected by the sensors. However, at present, these enabling technologies are also supported by several new technologies. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the H-IoT systems at almost every level. The fog/edge paradigm is bringing the computing power close to the deployed network and hence mitigating many challenges in the process. While the big data allows handling an enormous amount of data. Additionally, the Software Defined Networks (SDNs) bring flexibility to the system while the blockchains are finding the most novel use cases in H-IoT systems. The Internet of Nano Things (IoNT) and Tactile Internet (TI) are driving the innovation in the H-IoT applications. This paper delves into the ways these technologies are transforming the H-IoT systems and also identifies the future course for improving the Quality of Service (QoS) using these new technologies.

The Future of Healthcare Internet of Things: A Survey of Emerging Technologies

Artificial intelligence in drug development: present status and future prospects

One of the most important discoveries and creative developments that is playing a vital role in the professional world today is blockchain technology. Blockchain technology moves in the direction of persistent revolution and change. It is a chain of blocks that covers information and maintains trust between individuals no matter how far they are. In the last couple of years, the upsurge in blockchain technology has obliged scholars and specialists to scrutinize new ways to apply blockchain technology with a wide range of domains. The dramatic increase in blockchain technology has provided many new application opportunities, including healthcare applications. This survey provides a comprehensive review of emerging blockchain-based healthcare technologies and related applications. In this inquiry, we call attention to the open research matters in this fast-growing field, explaining them in some details. We also show the potential of blockchain technology in revolutionizing healthcare industry.

Blockchain Technology in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Review and Directions for Future Research

Wearable health monitoring systems have gained considerable interest in recent years owing to their tremendous promise for personal portable health watching and remote medical practices. The sensors with excellent flexibility and stretchability are crucial components that can provide health monitoring systems with the capability of continuously tracking physiological signals of human body without conspicuous uncomfortableness and invasiveness. The signals acquired by these sensors, such as body motion, heart rate, breath, skin temperature and metabolism parameter, are closely associated with personal health conditions. This review attempts to summarize the recent progress in flexible and stretchable sensors, concerning the detected health indicators, sensing mechanisms, functional materials, fabrication strategies, basic and desired features. The potential challenges and future perspectives of wearable health monitoring system are also briefly discussed.

Flexible, Stretchable Sensors for Wearable Health Monitoring: Sensing Mechanisms, Materials, Fabrication Strategies and Features

Wearable devices are becoming widespread in a wide range of applications, from healthcare to biomedical monitoring systems, which enable continuous measurement of critical biomarkers for medical diagnostics, physiological health monitoring and evaluation. Especially as the elderly population grows globally, various chronic and acute diseases become increasingly important, and the medical industry is changing dramatically due to the need for point-of-care (POC) diagnosis and real-time monitoring of long-term health conditions. Wearable devices have evolved gradually in the form of accessories, integrated clothing, body attachments and body inserts. Over the past few decades, the tremendous development of electronics, biocompatible materials and nanomaterials has resulted in the development of implantable devices that enable the diagnosis and prognosis through small sensors and biomedical devices, and greatly improve the quality and efficacy of medical services. This article summarizes the wearable devices that have been developed to date, and provides a review of their clinical applications. We will also discuss the technical barriers and challenges in the development of wearable devices, and discuss future prospects on wearable biosensors for prevention, personalized medicine and real-time health monitoring.

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Evolution of Wearable Devices with Real-Time Disease Monitoring for Personalized Healthcare

Objectives Wearable devices are currently at the heart of just about every discussion related to the Internet of Things. The requirement for self-health monitoring and preventive medicine is increasing due to the projected dramatic increase in the number of elderly people until 2020. Developed technologies are truly able to reduce the overall costs for prevention and monitoring. This is possible by constantly monitoring health indicators in various areas, and in particular, wearable devices are considered to carry this task out. These wearable devices and mobile apps now have been integrated with telemedicine and telehealth efficiently, to structure the medical Internet of Things. This paper reviews wearable health care devices both in scientific papers and commercial efforts. Methods MIoT is demonstrated through a defined architecture design, including hardware and software dealing with wearable devices, sensors, smart phones, medical application, and medical station analyzers for further diagnosis and data storage. Results Wearables, with the help of improved technology have been developed greatly and are considered reliable tools for long-term health monitoring systems. These are applied in the observation of a large variety of health monitoring indicators in the environment, vital signs, and fitness. Conclusions Wearable devices are now used for a wide range of healthcare observation. One of the most important elements essential in data collection is the sensor. During recent years with improvement in semiconductor technology, sensors have made investigation of a full range of parameters closer to realization.

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Wearable Devices in Medical Internet of Things: Scientific Research and Commercially Available Devices.

The concentration in the new era of healthcare is the medical Internet of Things (IoT) according to preventive and prediction ( $p^{2}~Health$ ). In large scale and general perspective, the effective parameters from behavioral, ambient, and physiological domains as the most influencing fields of interest in healthcare must be monitored. In personalized healthcare monitoring, wearables are playing an important role in terms of data measurement and collection. We aim at creating a configurable and adaptable platform for comprehensive parameters monitoring, according to the convenient mode of wearability. Hence, we develop an innovative wrist-worn prototype for ambient monitoring and a flexible IoT gateway. The prototype measures the most critical parameters from an ambient domain. In this platform, via IoT gateway as an intermediate hub between the wearables and the IoT server, bidirectional communication between the end user and medics is established in real time. In addition, the physician as the real-time observer of patients are given the possibility to set up the required parameters for measurement through the IoT gateway and activate/deactivate the sensors on the wearables. Therefore, depending on the target investigation, status of patients, requirements, and demands, medics can determine the setup parameters for measurement. Thus, the application of this platform is not limited to specific groups, but widely may be applied whether in daily routine or medical research investigation. Under the flexible IoT gateway, the new wearables can readily be integrated and synchronized into the platform. The users are not restricted to select only one specific product but there are alternatives as well. To support the solution, experimental results are provided.

A Flexible and Pervasive IoT-Based Healthcare Platform for Physiological and Environmental Parameters Monitoring

Unobtrusive in-vehicle health monitoring has the potential to use the driving time to perform regular medical check-ups. This work intends to provide a guide to currently proposed sensor systems for in-vehicle monitoring and to answer, in particular, the questions: (1) Which sensors are suitable for in-vehicle data collection? (2) Where should the sensors be placed? (3) Which biosignals or vital signs can be monitored in the vehicle? (4) Which purposes can be supported with the health data? We reviewed retrospective literature systematically and summarized the up-to-date research on leveraging sensor technology for unobtrusive in-vehicle health monitoring. PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus delivered 959 articles. We firstly screened titles and abstracts for relevance. Thereafter, we assessed the entire articles. Finally, 46 papers were included and analyzed. A guide is provided to the currently proposed sensor systems. Through this guide, potential sensor information can be derived from the biomedical data needed for respective purposes. The suggested locations for the corresponding sensors are also linked. Fifteen types of sensors were found. Driver-centered locations, such as steering wheel, car seat, and windscreen, are frequently used for mounting unobtrusive sensors, through which some typical biosignals like heart rate and respiration rate are measured. To date, most research focuses on sensor technology development, and most application-driven research aims at driving safety. Health-oriented research on the medical use of sensor-derived physiological parameters is still of interest.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/3/864/pdf

Unobtrusive Health Monitoring in Private Spaces: The Smart Home.

A novel hardware approach with four physical layers and several integrated and add-on sensors for a comprehensive physical and chemical environmental parameter (toxic gases, sound level, air pressure, humidity, temperature, and motion tracking) monitoring is introduced in this paper To provide flexibility, the system is modular and each sensor functions independently The whole solution is small, compact, light, and wrist worn It is working in low power consumption mode and operates for several hours The device has two layers to implement the sensors and one layer for a warning system driver to enable the vibrating motor and beeper in emergency status The forth layer is the hardware flex interface that is connected to the display and sound module and provides the possibility of the hardware extension for further development The gas sensor node includes the sensor attached to the driver (located at the top) and is replaceable with other target gas sensors from the same family The warning system is located at the bottom of the proposed device The sampled data from the sensors are monitored in real time via the display and are sent to an Android smartphone for permanent storage via Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) 41 Consequently, these data will be directed to a cloud for further medical analyses Power consumption, results, device efficiency, and packet protocol justification are evaluated in this paper

A Low-Cost, Standalone, and Multi-Tasking Watch for Personalized Environmental Monitoring

An innovative, small, compact, light-weighted, configurable, and low power consumption wrist-worn prototype in the area of ambient parameters monitoring, in five physical layers, is introduced. The prototype is based on the multi-layer multi-sensor approach and is capable of measuring a wide range of toxic/hazardous gases, physical ambient parameters, and motion tracking. The proposed device operates in the stand-alone (BLE disconnected) and configurable (BLE connected) modes. The stand-alone mode supports real-time data monitoring on the display and data storage in an integrated external memory. The logged data are retrieved once BLE is resumed based on the user decision. In the configuration mode, sensors are activated and configured by the user via sending a command from the smartphone. The chemical parameters monitoring includes three hazardous gases (SO
 2
, NO
 2
, and CO one at each time). The toxic gas sensor along with the gas sensor driver forms the gas sensor node which is located at the top of the proposed device. Hardware flex interface is utilized as the second layer to facilitate the display and sound module connected to the host platform. The main platform that is expandable from both the sides in z -axis hosts the integrated sensors, microcontroller, and the chip antenna. Notification driver for the early user warning of abnormal status and battery holder is placed at the bottom of the device in two separate layers. Furthermore, the adjustable sensor sampling rate according to the battery level is applied in order to manage power consumption. Device configuration, prototype validation, data storage, power dissipation, and experimental results are discussed in detail at the end of this paper.

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Mostafa Haghi

Papers

Wearable Devices in Medical Internet of Things: Scientific Research and Commercially Available Devices.

A Flexible and Pervasive IoT-Based Healthcare Platform for Physiological and Environmental Parameters Monitoring

Unobtrusive Health Monitoring in Private Spaces: The Smart Home.

A Low-Cost, Standalone, and Multi-Tasking Watch for Personalized Environmental Monitoring

Pervasive and Personalized Ambient Parameters Monitoring: A Wearable, Modular, and Configurable Watch