Lockheed Takes On The IoT

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Lockheed Martin is making direct efforts to create Internet Of Things (IoT) solutions via its new Lockheed Martin Healthcare Technology Alliance.

According to HIT Consultant, Lockheed announced the formation of the new alliance, which combines the resources of leading Health IT providers, medical tech companies, and academic organizations together for the advancement of public health. Specifically, Big Cloud Analytics (BCA — a leading provider of real-time predictive analytics technology) will be working with Intel Corporation within the alliance.

IoT Revolutionizing Healthcare

While the IoT is believed by some to be overhyped in many sectors, healthcare is different. The Motley Fool presents five reasons that the new tech concept will change the industry:

• Medication Management: This can reduce unnecessary hospital and nursing admissions, even deaths.
• Vitals Monitoring: Medical professionals will have the ability to track patient health more effectively and efficiently.
• Fall Detection For The Elderly: Gyroscopes can alert professionals when a patient falls in real time.
• Early Detection Of Childhood Diseases: IoT devices could be used to detect respiratory problems as well as other conditions early.
• Inpatient Care: “Smart beds” will alert professionals of patient activity and surgical instruments (such as medical sponges) are outfitted with RFID tags so that sensors can track each item used in surgery.

Inside The Alliance

BCA and Intel will work together to develop solutions that incorporate sensors and wearable devices with other types of data streams for the alliance. Those solutions will then facilitate collecting patient-level data and associated analytics platforms and tools, all to better understand individual and population health.

The solutions will originate within BCA’s real-time health analytics platform which is powered by patent-pending customer intelligence engine COVALENCE technology, which in turn runs on the Intel IoT Gateway.

Insurers are currently leveraging the platform to track the well-being of their insured members through the examination of factors including the effects environmental weather patterns have on behavior and the correlation between sleep quality and activity levels.

The resulting solutions will be offered to providers, payors, governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical companies.

Horace Blackman, vice president of health and life sciences for Lockheed's Information Systems & Global Solutions weighed in on the alliance via Healthcare Dive, “Through collaboration between health IT industry and academic partners, this team will develop and refine technologies that will help guide decisions for care, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, while protecting critical health information.”