Prioritizing Health Care Data Traffic in a Congested IoT Cloud Network

While routing through the Internet of Things (IoT) network, conventional healthcare data packets do not get any special priority routing treatment. IoT is facing performance issues in packet data transmission due to network congestion; with the conventional packet routing process, there is no guarantee that the patients’ health data will be properly routed to doctors on time. This leaves the remote medical treatment at risk with possible threat to patients’ lives. In this paper, we studied the current healthcare packet transmission process in IoT and its performance issues in congested IoT networks, then proposed a solution to prioritize healthcare data routing in congested IoT cloud networks. Our proposed system adds a healthcare data identifier in IP packet headers at the sensor level, modifies QoS software at the network router level, and prioritizes healthcare data packet routing based on the healthcare data identifier seen at router QoS. Test data shows promising results that may significantly benefit remote medical diagnostic process by reducing up to 80 percent latency. Additionally, it saves medical diagnostic cost, and more importantly, reduces the risk of losing human lives. From our analysis, further contribution includes opening up multiple avenues for research.