Internet-of-Things (IoT)

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) consists of a large number of devices that are connected via Internet to sense
and respond to conditions in their environments. The devices are typically sensors and actuators that
exchange information with a controlling software for a defined purpose. For example, in the context of a
smart city, there may be a large number of sensors in the water infrastructure that sense and collect
information on water pressure and water flows. This information would be relayed over the Internet to
software that would identify the location of the information and process it to determine if any action is
required. In case action is required, this information would be sent out over the Internet to the actuators
that can effect changes in the pressure and flow of water.

Sensors
Things Internet
Actuators Internet-of-Things

Software
Data

Benefits of IoT in healthcare sector:

 Monitoring of Health Metrics

Health metrics of the patients can be monitored on real time basis and can send alerts in case of
emergency such as heart attack, asthma attack etc or another medical emergency.

 Better Patient Experience

IoT helps to improve the healthcare system by giving patients a more comfortable way connect
with doctors. It helps to improve the patient’s experience and hence helps to get faith of the
patients.

 Drug Management
IoT technology allows controlling the amount of taken medicine. Administrators can monitor the
dose given to the patient and hence leads to prevent any failure in the treatment process. IoT
devices can also send reminders to patient and their family members when drug is not
administered.

 Healthcare Automation
IoT devices can help automate administrative, manual, and routine tasks. IoT applications help in
performing assessment of the patients’ health conditions.

 Preventive Healthcare
A lot of people die from chronic diseases. IoT application will help to detect the medical
pattern of a patient and hence will help doctors to administer personalized care and medical
treatment. IoT devices can monitor health conditions of patients on real time basis.
 IoT in Health Sector

Different hospitals collect massive data produced by IoT devices which help in perform medical
assessment. This will help in invention of new methods of treatment for early detection of chronic diseases.
Artificial intelligence can bring drastic improvement in the healthcare sector.

Insights of this application

• Organized data will lead to technology innovation.
• Historical data will help doctors to find the different patterns of a particular disease
and hence leads to early detection of chronic diseases.
• An IoT device sends and receives data via cloud storage. Hence these data will be
accessed by multiple devices at the same time.
• Data management leads to better patient care.
• Improvement in hospital management system through research and innovation.

Online pharmacy

An online pharmacy refers to a business where medicine can be ordered online and delivery of the medicine
is done at the doorsteps. Here valid prescription is needed for purchase of prescription-only drugs. Also there
are some medicines that do not require prescription. An E-Pharmacy application operates over internet by
selling drugs, medicines & sending them to the customers at their doorsteps.

An e-Pharmacy has parts:

Mobile Application or Website:

o Mobile or Web-based application used to order the medicine
o Valid prescription to be uploaded in the application.
o Making payment against the order

Pharmacy Medicine Store:

o Verification of the order and prescription by pharmacists.
o Pharmacy store to send the medicines in proper seal packets if everything is correct.
o If there is some issue with prescription, then medicine is not sent.
o There should be proper bill or invoice to be sent with medicine packets.
o The pharmacy store comply with the Drugs and Cosmetics Act & Rules

Internet penetration in India is improving rapidly and people are now switching to e-pharmacy model for
ordering medicines. The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has undertaken various initiatives using
Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). Some of the initiatives are mentioned in the below
image:
Some features of e-pharmacy applications:-

Server less Containers: E-Pharmacy applications are very easy to manage as they are built with
native programming languages using .NET and Java. Also PHP and HTML is used to build the
content of the application. Hence the monitoring and management of these applications are very
simple. Some applications are in the process of getting started with server less technologies such
as Lambda and Fargate.
Robotic Process Automation: Many e-pharmacy companies are using RPA in various operations
systems. For instance, in order to keep the product catalogue up-to-date, they run bots that lookup
supplier data and match products and prices against its product catalogue. E-pharmacy companies
use machine learning and fuzzy logic to map their catalogue to supplier catalogues.
E-pharmacy companies have built intelligence into the system to be able to understand
certain prescription layouts and rate/score the validity of a prescription. It has improved the
accuracy and reduced the time for pharmacists to validate a prescription.

Role of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Analytics

E-pharmacy companies have built an advanced pharmacy module which helps in digitization of
prescriptions. When the prescription is uploaded, the AI can read the prescription and
automatically add medicines in the cart as per prescription. If there is any wrong prescription then
application can send alerts to pharmacists.

Pharmaceutical management System (PMS) helps in decision making process by analyzing and
processing the patient’s data. Some features are:-

• Graphical presentation of data

• Effective analysis and data processing
• Interpretation of information to identify trends and potential problems
• Appropriate use of technology to share information with a wider audience
rapidly.
• Pro-active actions on the result
• Effective feedback mechanism

 Data Analysis and Processing: The objective of data processing is to perform proper
processing of large data and convert into meaningful information for result inference.

 Presenting information: Simple techniques for graphing tabular data can help simplify
interpretation. Some common graph types and their uses are—

o Bar graphs: comparison of values for different items

o Line graphs: presentation of trends over time
o Pie charts: demonstration of the relationships among the parts of a whole
Information System in e-pharmacy is beneficial to customers in following ways:

• Medicine Availability and Convenience: Customer can order medicine from home from
mobile or computer without going outside specifically in case of pandemic like COVID-19.
• Accessibility: Online platforms can be accessed 24X7. Customers can order medicine as per
their convenience from several e-Pharmacy applications.
• Consumer Awareness: e-Pharmacy can provide information to the customers about the usage
and side effects of the medicine. Also in case of unavailability of medicine, they can choose for
other cheaper substitutes.
• Customer records: e-Pharmacy applications can remind the customers about the time to re-
order the medicines.
• Genuine Medicines: e-Pharmacy applications are regulated based on Drugs and Cosmetics
Act & Rules and hence making the market a lot more transparent. Also it will ensure supply
of genuine medicine to patients.
• Genuine records: e-Pharmacy applications have to provide proper invoice with taxes together
with medicines on each transaction.
• Data analytics: e-Pharmacy applications can store data of the patients and can help to infer
the metrics like consumption of a particular medicine per month etc.
• Drug Approval: Most of these legal stores have a process of drug approval. They require a
prescription from a personal physician, or at least offer a drug as a prescribed medication.