Non- Functional testing for Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)

Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)

IoMT technology uses the internet to collect, analyseand deliver health data of remote patients by health care providers. This is done in real time with the help of medical devices and health care applications that incorporate the IoMT technology which includes advanced sensors, IoT connectivity, and artificial Intelligence (AI).

IoMT devices link to cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, on which captured data can be stored and analysed. IoMT is also known as healthcare Io.

Examples of IoMT include remote patient monitoring of people with chronic orlong-term conditions; tracking patient medication orders and the location of patients admitted to hospitals; and patients’ wearable mHealth devices, which can send information to caregivers. Infusion pumps that connect to analytics dashboards and hospitalbeds rigged with sensors that measure patients’ vital signs are medical devices that can be converted to or deployed as IoMT technology.

Objective of the paper

This paper aims at concluding the various factors and necessary conditions to be considered while non-functional testing such as Performance testing as well as security testing for IoMT.

Need for NFT:

Medical Io devices cater to a large pool of patients and are usually connected over internet. This makes the devices and applications vulnerable to performance failovers. The servers responsible for intake of real time data must be robust, fault tolerant and scalable according to need. These devices are highly critical since mostly they are directly responsible for the patient’s well-being. Thus, a crash due to sudden surge in load is hazardous and might be a life risk to patients.

A performance test would ensure the quality of server-side communication and metrics like load, network bandwidth, latency.

On the other hand, most health care organizations have a history of data breaches. With devices like digital pacemakers, smart insulin devices and cardiac implants, the margin for security error in IoMT tech has been reduced to nil. A hack or data breach could cause to malfunction and shut down devices that could be fatal to patients. It is also necessary to protect health data through correct encryption protocols to prevent leaks.

Security testing must be incorporated right from the design phase to prevent vulnerabilities. The key focus areas for security could be Data Storage, Data Transmission, Encryption Algorithm, Identity and Access Management.