Internet of Things: Making Sense of the Next Mega-Trend

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is emerging as the next technology mega-trend, with repercussions across the business spectrum. Internet of Things (IoT), which will create a huge network of billions or trillions of "Things" communicating with one another, are facing many technical and application challenges. IoT is triggering a careful thinking on the role and modes of providing care to people in order to ensure a decent quality of life, without imposing traumatic changes of habits and domestic environment. RF identification (RFID) technology is now mature to provide part of the IoT physical layer for the personal healthcare in smart environments through low-cost, energy-autonomous, and disposable sensors. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and smart mobile technologies are also leading this evolutionary trend. In the wake of this tendency, this paper proposes a novel, IoT aware, smart architecture for automatic monitoring and tracking of patients, personnel, and biomedical devices within hospitals and nursing institutes.