IoT as enabler for more efficient contact tracing

Purpose and goal

In the future healthcare will be digitalised. This implies that healthcare providers have to cooperate with providers of technology to develop capabilities to understand, to procure and to implement such enabling digital solutions. The objective of this project is to develop such capabilities in the area of IoT by a process where healthcare and IoT providers in cooperation analyse needs, explore opportunities by innovative IoT solutions, and compile tentative requirement specifications for procurement. Two applications have been developed for demonstration purposes.

Expected results and effects

The technology partners in the project have together with clinics within the healthcare organisation of Region Skåne developed an IoT solution to track healthcare-related infection, i.e. -to analyse in real time the level of certainty that a serious infection has occurred -to analyse, at the time when a serious infection has been identified, probable root causes, such as infected equipment or examination rooms The application platform used is based on an architecture where data sources are imported and re-structured, and where alternative applications are developed flexibly

Planned approach and implementation

The project has in principal implemented the initial stages of an innovation procurement process, where need owners (healthcare clinics of Region Skåne) and an IoT application platform provider cooperate to find solutions to qualified needs. In parallel a similar process has been implemented at one of the emergency units at an hospital together with a IoT provider for in-door positioning. In both cases experience and learnings have been gained in order to increase the capability of the healthcare provider to understand and to request IoT-based innovative solutions.