November 21, 2017 | According to Frost & Sullivan, the internet of medical things market will reach $72 billion by 2021. And it encompasses everything: sensors, medical device, fitness and wearable manufacturers, data analytics, cloud and data warehousing, cybersecurity and high-tech companies, hospitals and physician networks, health plans and payers. With the promise, though, are the challenges we must first overcome in privacy, cybersecurity, data interoperability, and patient engagement that come along with it.

Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s Inaugural Healthcare Internet of Things event* in San Francisco next February aims to bring together constituents and stakeholders to share cases studies and pilot programs that showcase the healthcare industry’s collaborative efforts toward the adoption and implementation of IoT.

It promises to be a rich two days! Here are a few of the talks we have flagged on our agendas. 

--The Editors

William Morris, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, will give a keynote address on aligning the people, processes and technologies within organizations to realize the promise of the Internet of Things. Morris will then join a panel of colleagues from Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, Carbon Health, and MedImmune to discuss delivering healthcare in the age of big data, AI and IoT. The panel will tackle business case, value, and reimbursement structure in healthcare and explore how the internet of things may help transform fee-for-service system to value-based healthcare system.

Chatbots and digital assistants are becoming mainstream in homes, online shopping, and your car. But what about in a hospital or healthcare setting? A panel discussion will explore some of the options and issues: how an A.I. nurse could replace a live healthcare professional in managing a chronic disease patient and allowing for infinitely scalable, personalized care for every patient in need; cybersecurity challenges in mobile apps; and importantly: HIPAA compliance. Speakers from Open Health Network; Samsung; Lark Technologies; and SnapMD will explore how apps should be monitored for HIPAA compliance, and to what extent consumers are aware of the cybersecurity risks.

Bonnie Feldman, DrBonnie360/Your Autoimmunity Connection, will explore how IoT can help us challenge the invisible epidemic of autoimmunity. Feldman believes that by harnessing our culture of ubiquitous connectivity and new scientific understanding through data and digital tools, we can create better self-management tools for complex chronic diseases, such as the 100+ kinds of autoimmune disease. She will share how tools being developed to connect with the IoT are helping to empower patients, support practices, gather data, develop resources and enable new frameworks to help autoimmune patients improve their day-to-day lives.

A panel on privacy and security will tackle the vulnerabilities in IoT networks, and how to mitigate the risk of a cyberattack. Speakers from Cognitive Health, Netspective, Illumination.io, Wolf Den Associates, and ecfirst will share challenges and strategies for maintaining patient privacy and seeking consent for sharing data; legalities, permissions and rules on data-sharing; HIPAA privacy and security requirements for apps, mobile devices, and voice technologies; and ensuring secure encryption of data from non-regulated devices. The panel will also delve into how blockchain technology and distributed ledger can be applied to health records and data sharing.

Editor’s Note: Cambridge Healthtech Institute is the parent company of this publication. Healthcare IoT, February 13-14, 2018. San Francisco, Calif. iottechsummit.com