A Multi-Sensor IoT Platform for monitoring medicine storage beyond the hospital

Abstract

Ambient-sensitive pharmaceutical products degrade when they are exposed to unsuitable environmental conditions such as inappropriate temperature, humidity, light, or mechanical stress. While hospitals ensure proper storage, these conditions are often compromised once medications reach ambulatory patients. This paper presents a novel Internet of Things (IoT)-based platform architecture to monitor drug conservation beyond hospital facilities, extending into patients’ homes. The proposed system comprises a monitoring network and a servers system. The monitoring network includes sensor nodes placed within the original outer packaging of the medication, capturing key environmental variables, and patient-installed gateways that locally process and transmit data to the servers system for near real-time storage and analysis. The servers system detects preservation issues and generates alerts, notifying both patients and hospital pharmacy professionals to enable timely corrective actions. Locally, the gateway warns patients of suboptimal storage conditions, allowing immediate intervention. This platform fosters collaboration between patients and pharmacists, ensuring effective follow-up on drug conservation and administration. Special consideration has been given to energy efficiency to extend sensor node battery life, making the system practical for real-world deployments. The implemented sensor node collects data every 10 s to be transmitted to the gateway, resulting in an estimated battery life of 17.5 months—sufficient for long-term operation, without frequent maintenance. By enabling continuous drug quality monitoring beyond hospitals, including at patients’ homes, this platform supports safer and more effective drug therapies. This work represents a significant advancement in leveraging IoT technologies to improve medicine conservation in decentralized healthcare settings.