Internet of Things Applications in Healthcare During COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) can offer extraordinary innovations in healthcare. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to study the different applications of IoT-enabled healthcare has emerged. This paper focuses on extrapolating people’s opinions about the use of IoT technologies in healthcare. A questionnaire was used to obtain and analyze the results of a sample from Benghazi Medical Hospital in Libya. The questionnaire was distributed to two groups of patients, their companions, and medical staff in the hospital, where the data obtained were analyzed using the SPSS software. The results indicate that the patients and their companions see that there are advantages to using the IoT in the health sector because it reduces the difficulty of booking and overcrowding, although there are disadvantages, the most important of which is the lack of knowledge of the elderly in these technologies. Medical staff also believe that the use of the IoT has several advantages, including limiting the spread of infectious diseases, although hospitals do not provide the applications, equipment, and maintenance that this technology needs. Based on the results obtained, the study came up with some important recommendations.