The Internet of Things (IoT) Give Birth to Star Trek Like Healthcare

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Flickr

If you ask the average person if they want to be healthy, live longer, be more active in their retirement years, you would get a big fat "YES", as the answer almost every time. What if you asked - If we could make going to the doctor for a check up - painless, quick, easy you would get a big fat "YES". But what if we said that we could gather all your health vitals remotely using a health scanner followed by a five minute video teleconference once a year, if no problems are found. Wouldn't that even be better. Again the answer would be a big fat "YES". 

So If I told you we have Star Trek like technology available now that could provide all your vital health information and could eliminate most doctor visits, what would you say? Most people would say, "You're kidding, right!". But I wouldn't be kidding! In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will explore the exploding healthcare IoT (Internet of Things) industry that is making Star Trek like healthcare a reality for many consumers in the 21st Century. So read on about the rapidly evolving IoT of healthcare and how it will affect your personal health in the present if you so choose.
This is not our first foray into the subject of Star Trek healthcare tech. In fact, we first talked about advances in  high tech medicine in 2013. In an article called, "Can Google Cure Death, Disease and Aging?". We discussed how Google had created a medical research division and database to determine ways to extend lives and cure disease. At the time, Google was spending millions on this new division. In 2014 we wrote, "New Advances in Telemedicine - Taking Your Medicine Online" about the emergence of telemedicine for patients and wearable medical monitors. In 2015 we wrote, "Wearables 2.0 - The Rise of Trackers" where the health tracker craze had finally reached a fever pitch. 

Courtesy of Flickr

We followed this with our article called, "The Basics of Biohacking" which discussed how people were surgically embedding electronic implants into their bodies for a multitude of reasons. We then wrote in 2015 the followup to our first article about online medicine called, "The Doc in the eBox" and in 2016, "Telemedicine: Is there a doctor in your browser?". Both were big hits as they described the latest online medical developments. 

Finally in late 2016 we also wrote our follow up to our other Star Trek tech article called, "Star Trek Tech and Beyond in the 21st Century" which also coincided with the launch of the 2017 CBS new Star Trek series call Discovery. This article provides links to many other articles where we talked about numerous Star Trek tech inventions and technical developments. What has always been fascinating to me is how these high tech devices have come to fruition in my lifetime.

Fast Forward to Today - I was watching a new TV series on the Science Channel called "Tomorrow's World Today"  where they talked about amazing new medical technologies where the IoT interfaces being developed by a company called Avnet. This company is changing the the way medical assessment is being deliver to individuals. Avnet creates IoT interfaces for a large group of emerging medical IoT companies. Their website labeled, "Welcome to Avnet’s solutions campaigns" show off that they provide a multitude of ways to help IoT companies develop healthcare products. These products in turn are helping lots of people monitor and deal with all kinds of medical issues. 

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In a few of our previous Star Trek tech articles we mentioned that companies are working on producing a medical Tricorder like the one portrayed in the Star Trek series. Well there has been an ongoing contest to develop a fully functional Tricorder via the "Qualcomm Tricorder Xprize contest. The Tricorder Xprize contest will award a $10 million purse to the winner. There website states the following; "The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE was a $10 million global competition to incentivize the development of innovative technologies capable of accurately diagnosing a set of 13 medical conditions independent of a healthcare professional or facility, ability to continuously measure 5 vital signs, and have a positive consumer experience." Needless to say, health diagnosis without a doctor for 13 medical conditions and 5 vital sign would lower the cost of healthcare substantially. It would allow doctors to focus on the acute and chronic medical problems that individuals have. It would also make it feasible for nurses and other healthcare professional to help administer medical care.

Today, if you do a search on Google or other internet search engine, you will find a slew of articles on IoT healthcare devices. Some of the most amazing products I found range from smart contact lenses to ingestible sensors. In an article entitled, "10 examples of the Internet of Things in healthcare", I found details on devices like "Remote cancer treatment monitoring, Smart continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and insulin pens, Closed-loop (automated) insulin delivery systems, Connected inhalers, Ingestible sensors, and a lot more". 

I also found a article that listed, "64 Healthcare IoT Startups In Patient Monitoring, Clinical Efficiency, Biometrics, And More". Finally in an article entitled, "How IoT In Healthcare Is Changing Medicine", shows how IoT medical devices are lowering the drug cost and delivering medical treatment to all parts of the world. 

Courtesy of Flickr

We are now experiencing a full fledged explosion of new medical technology that takes advantage of IoT interfaces. It's like we are at the beginning of the Star Trek age. It is very important to note that there is a hidden danger with all IoT devices. The hidden danger is that these devices may have weak security and are vulnerable to being hacked. 

As consumers, we want to take advantage of these new IoT medical devices to reap the benefits that IoT healthcare is bringing to the world. However, the onus is on every individual to make sure you protect yourself from cybercriminals. We also need to demand that manufacturers take cybersecurity seriously, and that they design these devices with high measures of built in secure access systems. Any security flaw in your IoT network could give the bad guys access not only to your medical devices, but to your entire digital domain. 

Before purchasing or using any IoT device, medical or otherwise, do your due diligence by researching the device and asking relevant questions about how secure these devices are. For example, does it require two step authentication to get started etc... Without strong security, any IoT device can be a major detriment to your personal digital domain. Let's all take advantage of IoT healthcare, but let's not forget that we don't want to give cybercriminals a backdoor to our digital domains.

That's my opinion; I look forward to reading yours.



This article talks about the flood of new Star Trek like IoT medical devices and how IoT healthcare is changing how healthcare is delivered to the world. It also provides many examples of these devices, the companyies involved, including the manufacturer website links. We also have provided other IoT healthcare articles and relevant links including a link to the accompany BlogTalkRadio show for this episode.

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Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success” and the co-author along with his business partner Carl Weiss of their hit book also called “Working the Web to Win.”