Envisioning a New Fitness Future with Internet of Things (IoT) and Built – In Artificial Intelligence

The world is continuously growing and changing. Various advancements have also occurred when it comes to the technology used in rendering healthcare services. The technology has also played a big role in patient registration and data monitoring. Now there are technologies that allow a healthcare provider to monitor their patients in their own mobile phones.Internet of Things could be the driver for health care’s new visage and revolutionize patient care transcendentally.

They are also now capable of sending and receiving patient’s information in their mobile phones and provide brisk alerts at the health threshold alert points. Devices that can help monitor one’s fitness,health and vitals are easily available in the market. As a matter of fact, there are even sensors that are capable of collecting data that would of course help the doctor to be informed in case it exceeds the breakeven point during an aberration case. This extended offering deems to have parity with all stakeholders like hospitals, ICU, ambulatory other than patient and doctor. This allows them to provide the right medication and treatment to their patients fast. On the other hand, although great improvements have been made in the healthcare industry, one can still expect that a brighter future awaits in the next years or decades.Within five years, the majority of clinically relevant data will be collected outside of clinical settings.

It has been said that healthcare in the future would become more personal offering. Thus, one can expect that personalized medicines or medicines that have been created specifically for an individual would be available. The way doctors diagnose their patient’s disease and provide treatment to them would be largely based on IoT paradigm. In the IoT paradigm everything in the world will be smart, allowing them to communicate with each other through internet technology either physically or virtually. IoT allows people and things to be connected Anytime, Anyplace, with anything and anyone, ideally in any path/network and any service.Following are few applications of IoT in healthcare industry.

1) Remote patient monitoring

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses digital technologies to collect medical and other forms of health data from one individual in one location and electronically transmit this information to the health care providers. RPM can help reduce the number of hospital readmissions and lengths of stay in the hospitals.

2) Clinical care

Hospitalized patients whose physiological status requires close attention can be constantly monitored using IoT driven, non-invasive monitoring. Sensors are used to collect such information and using cloud this data is analyzed and sent to caregivers. It replaces the need for the doctor to visit the patient over regular intervals for checkup. This will also help to improve the quality of care through constant monitoring.

3) Device monitoring

An IoT connected metal device can notify when there is a problem with a device. This will prevent the device from shutting down and avoid patient rescheduling.

4) Outpatient Monitoring

This IoT solution enables doctors to capture health parameters and advice patients remotely. The patient’s hospital visit is therefore limited to visit only on need basis. This solution helps hospitals manage hospital beds and consequently increase revenues while at the same time delighting customers.

The Howard case below highlights the key role of a business model in ensuring the competitive advantage and sustained success of a business venture. It appreciates the market attractiveness and future of wearable technology.

GOQii’s product-service offering of wearable fitness band technology was supplemented with remote personalized coaching. With its launch in the Indian market, and its emergence as a pioneer of a new category of product in the health and lifestyle space had the ability to integrate human assistance with built-in artificial intelligence. Gondal realized that while people were adopting wearable technology solutions for healthy living, there was still a lack of awareness and an air of hesitancy about the usefulness of and need for wearable devices in India. Gondal’s dilemma: whether to continue GOQii’s positioning as “wearable technology with personalized coaching” and aggressively expand globally, or consolidate and broaden his present offering by embracing the customer more fully and focusing on the “customer healthcare journey” in India. Case B picks up from October 2016, by which time GOQii had consolidated and broadened its offering by focusing on the “customer journey” in India. It had successfully on-boarded different service providers such as doctors, a diagnostic center chain, a hospital chain, sports and grocery stores and Axis Bank (for payments) on their platform, thus providing a complete health ecosystem to the GOQii user. By the second quarter of 2016, GOQii had achieved the number one spot in the Indian wearables market. The immediate decision that GOQii core team need to make is whether they should tie up with multiple insurance providers or explore the possibility of partnering with a reinsurer to complete the entire health spectrum services offering on their data platform.

Shweta Nanda
Assistant Professor – Technology & Operations

Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to change the way every industry works. It involves creating machines that can work intelligently like humans. The use of data is increasingly driving major decisions in different industries. This data when fed and used by machines give machines the wisdom to think like humans. Hence there is huge dependency on integrity of data. The need of the hour is data centric technologies and institutions will need to upgrade their curriculum to remain competitive. The key to getting employment in future is to upgrade skills of people and work towards specialization. The necessary skills required for data centric technologies are being identified to align educational institutions.

While changes are being introduced in the companies, one has to find a way to continue sustaining an income until the skills get upgraded.The limitations of humans will no longer be a concern with advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. With the use of Robots, the number of errors will reduce and the speed and quality of work will improve. Many countries that face limitations due to lack of youth in large numbers will no longer be behind in the race towards advancement. Labour intensive work will be automated and humans will take the activities that require critical thinking and analysis. The cost of performance in the long run will reduce though initial years will require huge investment towards automation. As per Mckinsey’s report, by 2055, half of the work activities could be automated. Humans would need to start getting used to working with machines. New skills will need to be acquired and the policies created by the government will have to be innovative to accommodate this major impact in type of employment.

AI has started delivering value in various sectors. Retail sector is using AI robots to check inventory and place orders automatically when the inventory levels are low. With the analysis of big data, retailers are able to predict sales and are able to manage inventory and make profits. Robots can work alongside humans in retailers warehouses and increase productivity. Delivery to customers can be done by drones like Flirtey. Check in and issuing of boarding passes have started without the requirement of human intervention in the airline industry. Manufacturing industry is seeing a drastic change. Optimization of processes across the value chain from refinement in product design to using AI based tools throughout the supply chain is possible.  In healthcare, AI can lead to better diagnosis with the use of big data analysis of patient history, other similar cases and treatment details. The insurance companies can use big data to improve their business model. Routine patient interactions can be done by AI enabled robots which have all the basic information.

Educational institutes will also have to rethink their strategy for sustainability. In Education, there are going to be virtual tutors who can tailor the curriculum for students. The education system will see a dramatic shift as AI will be able to forecast the need of future employers. Institutes are exploring how AI applications can be used to improve retention problems in students. Programs teaching computer applications are using a personal tutor which gives questions to students along with hints as well as increases complexity level of questions based on performance. Big data and analytics can be used to reduce drop-out rates in students. Educational institutes will have to promote adaptive learning and teaching, looking at student data and use personalized and effective teaching methods.Value add work will continue to remain with humans and thus teachers will be expected to mentor and coach students. The primary areas would be creativity, emotional intelligence and communication which maybe beyond machine’s capability. Machines will cater to the routine queries of students can be automated to save time and effort. The technology is pervasive and has also entered grading. A company GradeScope uses machine learning to grade students on the basis of teachers instructions and students handwriting, though it is more for objective type of questions. Thus the focus of the teacher can be on higher level value add areas rather than routine queries, administrative work and basic lecturing.

Several key factors will determine the level of automation and its adoption. The technical feasibility of automating the task at hand for every industry will need to be evaluated. Since automation will take time and investment, the adoption will be dependent on the cost of development and implementation. The economy will struggle with the shift from cheap labour to buying expensive machines and experimenting. Though the economy will benefit because of better quality and speed of work, the acceptance of this change will determine the speed of adoption. Thus the day to day activities are not forecasted to change fast. At the micro level, changes are expected, however at the macro level it will take decades before complete adoption is seen.

Faculty Development Programme on Artificial Intelligence

A faculty development programme (FDP) on Artificial Intelligence (AI) was conducted at IILM Lodhi Road campus on 26th & 27th of October 2017. 60 faculty members from the IILM campuses at Lodhi Road, Gurgaon and Greater Noida attended the two day long programme. The programme was conceived and coordinated by Prof Rajkishan Nair. As a pre-requisite to attending the FDP, all the participants had to audit the edX course on AI.

The FDP was divided into three sessions, spread over two days. The first day kick started with a summary of the edX course on AI. The first session revolved around a discussion on the first 100 years report on AI from Stanford University. It discussed the growth and evolution of AI and its impact on our lives and specifically on business. A lot of short videos interspersed all the sessions which were highly interactive. The pre-lunch session ended with two case-study discussions from one of the pre-readings.

The second session, post-lunch, discussed the impact of AI on education & specifically on management education. Participants shared their perceptions and concerns regarding how AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is already changing the nature of jobs and the required skills sets of the 21st century workforce and how it would possibly impact the education system. The various aspects of challenges that management educators are likely to face subsequent to the aforementioned changes were discussed in detail.

The third session on the second day morning was delivered by Mr. Pankaj Bhardwaj from TCS. He shared his experiences with Business Intelligence and discussed how AI is changing the business intelligence landscape.

The fourth session was on Blended Learning Models and how blended learning courses enhance learning better. The FDP ended with an assessment exercise based on a brief case analysis on AI.