The Internet of Things and Considerations in the “Cognitive Era:” Implications for Digital Health Policy

The current state of healthcare in the United States and Japan consists of “exploding costs” along with “exploding data.” To address the rising costs and the increased swaths of data available, the “Internet of Things (IoT)” along with cognitive computing are technologies that can help to reduce rising costs of healthcare while providing greater prevention, treatment, and care. The “Internet of Things (IoT)” refers to the collection, exchange and interaction of data gathered through networked physical sensors; it is an important component of cognitive computing, a model of computing that includes a range of technology innovations in analytics, natural language processing and machine learning. 

This project focused on applications of IoT in two rapidly innovating areas of healthcare: outcomes based care and genomic medicine. A hypothesis-driven approach was utilized to study the ecosystems, analyze the regulatory and legislative framework, and identify patient data security vulnerabilities for outcomes based care and genomic medicine in the United States and Japan. With this understanding of the ecosystem, the project then focused on market analysis of stakeholders in outcomes based care and genomic medicine, identifying possible opportunities for partnership, while recognizing that challenges remained in ensuring security of patient data. In particular, blockchain technology provides a potential tool to ensure that the patient data that is shared is uncorrupted.