The Internet of Things and Opportunities for Pervasive Safety Monitored Health Environments

1.1 Patient Safety

The safety of patients and the avoidance of iatrogenic or unintentional harm to patients has grown in importance as medical procedures and technology complexity accentuates traditional human factor failings (Nolan, 2000; Lin et al, 2001). These and other publications such as Hoff et al (Hoff et al, 2004) have highlighted the risk of unintended impacts of mistakes and medical errors. Whilst most studies have focused on the cause of error and human factors (Caryon et al, 2010; Patterson et al, 2002; Benning et al, 2011; Holden, 2009), less work has been undertaken on technology to reduce error (Ball et al, 2003). One of the key problems in medical situations is that the human agent is often both the executor and monitor of actions. In many medical interventions we still rely on ‘the human in the loop’ and depend alone on the reliability of their perception, cognition and decision-making. The fallibility of an often-overworked brain, trying to make sense of complexity (Nolan, 2000), or the distracted social animal, lacking in independent and reliable action information and facts, is often the cause of many of the errors. Whilst information systems, decision support systems, robots and medical information have reduced the errors in mundane tasks (Ball et al, 2003), their sensors and ability to offer corroborating or alternative facts has been limited to points and focused solutions until now. With the introduction of the Internet of Things, the promise of small, cheap and ubiquitous sensors allied to actuators and smart logic offers opportunities to provide appropriate facts, and historical information, to support independent decision making and care-control at the point of need. This capability, as an augmentation of the human agent, has the potential to improve patient safety despite the increased cost and scarcity of clinical skills that health institutions are now facing.