Smart hospitals projected to deploy more than 7 million connected devices by 2026

Internet of medical things devices enable healthcare providers to use remote monitoring sensors and surgical robotics to improve patient care, staff productivity and operational efficiency.

Increased use of the IoMT represents growth of 131 per cent over 2021

Smart hospitals are forecast to deploy 7.4 million connected internet of medical things (IoMT) devices globally by 2026, with edge computing vital to driving market growth, a new study finds.

This global figure, which equates to 3,850 devices per smart hospital, represents a 131 per cent increase from 2021 when 3.2 million devices were deployed.

Connected devices

The concept of the IoMT involves healthcare providers leveraging connected devices such as remote monitoring sensors and surgical robotics to improve patient care, staff productivity, and operational efficiency.

Juniper Research’s study identified smart hospitals in the US and China as leading the global adoption of IoMT devices; accounting for 21 per cent and 41 per cent of connected devices respectively, by 2026.

Smart Hospitals: Technologies, Global Adoption & Market Forecasts 2021-2026 highlighted digital healthcare initiatives implemented during the ongoing pandemic and high levels of existing digitalisation within healthcare infrastructure as key to these countries’ leading positions.

“Smart hospital technologies generate significant quantities of data, meaning that the edge computing function provided by network operators will be crucial to the successful roll-out of these systems”

The report identified remote monitoring as key to delivering smart hospital services. It analysed how adoption of remote monitoring technologies accelerated during the pandemic significantly, due to difficulties associated with delivering in-person healthcare.

This accelerated adoption is set to continue over the next five years, as patients become acclimatised to remote monitoring and benefit from proactively managing and treating health conditions.

However, the report cautioned that the real-time nature of remote monitoring requires low latency, high bandwidth connections to ensure transmission of patients’ health data is not interrupted or distorted.

As a result, it recommends smart hospital vendors develop partnerships with network operators to leverage multi-access edge computing to drive major reductions in lag and latency.

“The emergence of remote monitoring within healthcare presents an opportunity for network operators to place themselves within the digital healthcare value chain,” said Adam Wears, research analyst at Juniper Research and author of the report.

“Smart hospital technologies generate significant quantities of data, meaning that the edge computing function provided by network operators will be crucial to the successful roll-out of these systems.”

Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.