Novelties presented at the IoT Forum 2016 (Madrid)

Recognising the potential and opportunities that the IoT can suppose in the area of social and healthcare, in TicSalut we draw special attention in this article to some of the key messages and experiences drawn from the meeting. In the different sessions, participants from different companies and entities expressed opportunities and challenges of the Internet of things, a concept which allows us to exploit data to offer practical knowledge, transforming all kinds of services in a collaborative and integrated way.

Challenges of the Smart Cities                                              

During the first session, some of the main aspects to be born in mind in implementing IoT projects were exposed by giving some examples of application. For example, three of the most important challenges in the area of Smart Cities were mentioned, which clearly also apply to the area of social and healthcare: accelerating the deployment of the basic infrastructures to support IoT Solutions; assuring data security and privacy, and; creating high impact use cases with respect to Big Data projects.

The need was stressed to define the “best customer experience” as a key factor in design, mentioning the need to “create ecosystems and partnerships between different players”, and “propose new business models” adapted to the needs. In technological terms the FI-WARE platform was presented as a benchmark open tool for the creation of cloud-based applications and services, developed by several companies of the telecommunications sector. However, although the European Commission is promoting its use as part of research and innovation projects, it is not yet clear what its use and real impact are, for example, in the social and healthcare area.  

Healthcare sector interoperability

The second session was started with the importance of interoperability between devices in the healthcare sector, mentioning the identification of what information is relevant for the individual, their medical record and the management of the population. A focus was made on the need to certify quality, safety, usability and other characteristics throughout the new universe of healthcare mobile applications. In this sense, the present actions must be mentioned that TicSalut is taking, such as the opening of the new mHealth.cat Office and the Portal AppSalut display, which includes a process of accreditation that assesses safety, content, usability and technology, all leading components of this edition of the Flash TicSalut.

Implementation of the IoT

When implementing the IoT in the technological field, three factors stood out: the Electronic Product Code (EPC) for single object identification, the IPV6 addressing diagram to associate objects with people, and the Open Geoespatial Consortium (EGC) as a developer of interoperability applications for device integration in real time. It was alerted that greater complexity and dependence on technology generates greater dependence and vulnerability to cyber-attacks, which makes significant investment necessary in solution security.

Finally, the meeting concluded with funding opportunities of the European Commission, which offers different lines of investment from the EU fund in Brussels, such as Horizon 2020, ISA 2 Programme, Connecting Europe Facility or Direct Sales to the EU Institutions.