IoT Healthcare: Benefits, issues and challenges

A sportsman's watch no longer marks the time, but it also provides information on the geographical location, on the number of steps, on the heart rate, on the blood oxygenation, on the blood pressure, etc. The bracelet of an elderly person can measure different physiological signals and can transmit them in real time to her doctor, allowing him to monitor the state of health even if the two are not in the same place. Thanks to the implementation and use of sensors, watches and bracelets have become smart objects. It is the world of the Internet of things that enters the health sector and fills the shelves of electronic stores with objects that can monitor our bodies. A market sector that is worth billions of dollars, but that has several implications along with its benefits. What happens to our data? Who has access to our data? Is it possible to cyber-attack these devices? Is our behavior influenced by reading this data? These are some of the questions that arise from the use of IoT devices in the health sector and in this paper we will address them by analyzing this scenario in detail, by highlighting threats and vulnerabilities and by proposing approaches that might mitigate issues related to the use of IoT in the health scenario.