EMBRACING INTERNET OF MEDICAL THINGS A multiple case study of contextual factors’ influence on the implementation of IoT healthcare solutions

Abstract

With the growing trend of digitalization, new opportunities to disrupt the way value is created, offered and defended have arisen in the healthcare industry. One of the emerging concepts of digitalization is the Internet of Things (IoT), referred to as Internet of Medical things when applied in healthcare. Although these solutions bring a lot of potential opportunities for cost-reduction and improved outcomes, it also includes risks that the operators should take into account. The previous research is lacking comprehensive studies of the contextual factors and how those affect the implementation of IoT solutions in healthcare. This study aims to address this gap by understanding how contextual factors affect the implementation of IoMT solutions. To achieve this aim, a multiple case study is conducted, giving a holistic view of seven contextual factors. The results from the primary and secondary data illustrate that all of the seven studied contextual factors do influence the implementation of the solutions by the studied cases, although in different ways. The results of this study can be used by the managers of IoMT firms for creating implementation strategies, as well as by other players in the ecosystem for analyzing how to utilize the IoMT solutions.