New Delhi: The healthcare industry is fast adopting new-age technologies, like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), in order to enhance access and outcomes, particularly in rural areas. However, the companies must ensure that the technology acts responsibly. IoT enables doctors to see and interact with patients in remote centers.

John Samuel, Managing Director (Health and Public Service) at Accenture, stated that India is facing an acute shortage of doctors which is affecting the quality and reach of healthcare services in rural and urban centers. A digital platform powered by advanced technologies enables remote patient monitoring and reporting thus enabling hospitals to provide quality care to more people and limit the burden on healthcare infrastructure.

According to the IoT India Congress 2018, the Indian IoT market is expected to expand to $9 billion by 2020 across the telecom, health, vehicles and homes, and several other sectors. It is going to become a $300 billion industry globally by the year 2020. India is set to capture nearly 20 per cent of the market share in the next 5 years, suggests a Nasscom report.

Lack of security awareness among the staff and state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions has made the healthcare industry vulnerable to hackers. A report in 2016 from the cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard noted that healthcare stands fifth in ransomware counts among all industries and over 77 per cent of the healthcare industry has been infected with malware since August 2015.

Despite all the ransomware attacks, organizations still remain unprepared, mentioned Yariv Fishman, Head of Product Management (Cloud Security and IoT) at Check Point Software Technologies.

Medical devices are fully used to fulfil patient care requirements in a hospital. Even if a software patch, meant to prevent a potential cyber-attack, is available, it usually takes a lot of time for implementation. Other reasons may include old or unpatched operating systems and flat networks wherein guests, patients, doctors and connected medical devices, share the same network.

Medical device designers should have a 360 degree view of the parts of the network in order to ensure security, mentioned Fishman.