A Systematic Literature Review of Enabling IoT in Healthcare: Motivations, Challenges, and Recommendations

Internet of things (IoT) has revolutionized how we utilize technology over the past decade. IoT’s rapid growth affects several fields, including the healthcare sector. As a result, the concept of smart healthcare or electronic healthcare (e-healthcare) has emerged. Smart healthcare promises to enhance people’s lives and wellbeing by monitoring them, offering an efficient connection, improving mobility, gathering medical data, and decreasing hospital and patient costs. IoT in healthcare is still one of the hot and trendy topics that needs in-depth investigation. No recent review has been conducted to elucidate the extent of research in the area, features of published papers, motives, and challenges in enabling IoT in healthcare systems. This study presents a comprehensive systematic review of the screened articles published between 2015 and 2022 pertaining to enabling IoT in healthcare services and applications. A total of 106 papers fulfilled the final inclusion criteria and were analyzed using systematic literature review (SLR). Two procedures were used to review the final articles: First, publications are examined in terms of study designs, publishing journals, and topics/study objectives. In the second approach, motives, challenges, and recommendations for enabling IoT in healthcare systems are explored. This article summarizes published studies on IoT in healthcare systems and its usage in smart healthcare service delivery. Based on the reviewed studies, recommendations for future research to enable the effective application of IoT in healthcare and service delivery are proposed.