Lifesaving Care: How Edge Computing is Changing Assisted Living

Brazil has some of the fastest internet speeds in its cities and some of the weakest coverage in its rural regions. For healthcare facilities in those remote areas, this isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s a serious challenge. How do you monitor patients continuously when the internet can’t be trusted?

This is the question we explore in Part 2 of this series. Assisted living facilities in Brazil’s interior offer a clear example of what’s at stake — and how edge computing can make a difference.

The Challenge of Continuous Care

Demand for online healthcare has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for seniors and people with chronic illnesses. Healthcare facilities face the need to provide continuous patient monitoring, even when Internet connectivity is unreliable.

Traditionally, the only solution was to assign staff to check on patients around the clock. But even that isn’t sustainable. Caregivers can’t be everywhere at once, and the approach is both costly and exhausting.

Modern technology offers a smarter path. Wearable wristbands and smart sensors create a constant flow of data instead of occasional check-ins. Platforms like ThingsBoard compile this information and display it on real-time dashboards, giving caregivers a continuous view of each patient’s location and wellbeing — and the ability to respond immediately when something goes wrong. See how IoT dashboards visualize data in real time.

Figure 1. The ThingsBoard Edge dashboard showcases visualized data in an assisted living facility.

Measuring the Impact

Implementing IoT in healthcare facilities isn’t just a technical upgrade. While it requires upfront investment, the return on investment is compelling.

The benefits of implementing remote patient monitoring (RPM) systems are being studied around the world. While specific results vary by facility type, patient population, and implementation scope, these benchmarks demonstrate the potential impact:

Table 1: Relevant global benchmark numbers. Sources: Remote Patient Monitoring Statistics and Facts by S.Revankar; Remote Patient Monitoring: The Cost Savings and Readmission Reductions for Specific Medical Conditions in Home Care by The Remington Report.

Of course, there are other metrics that demonstrate RPM efficiency, but mostly the results are achieved through alerting caregivers to potential emergencies before they turn into real ones.

Why This Matters for Brazil

Let’s consider Brazil’s rural context:

• Around 16% of Brazilians (approximately 30 million people) live in rural areas, often far from hospitals and clinics.
• Aging population, with growing chronic disease burden, particularly diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
• Emergency medical transport often involves long-distance travel over unpaved roads.
• Public and private health providers alike face rising costs.
• Internet connectivity remains unreliable, with 42% of rural residents lacking network access.

In such a context, the RPM systems become even more critical. Edge-enabled monitoring allows caregivers to catch problems early, prevent unnecessary hospital transfers, and reduce the burden of constant manual patient oversight. Solutions like ThingsBoard Edge turn these capabilities into reality, helping providers deliver reliable care even where resources and connectivity are limited.

Inside the System: How ThingsBoard Edge Makes It Work

Both cloud and edge computing are capable of handling continuous health monitoring. However, considering patchy Internet coverage across Brazil, edge computing is crucial. With ThingsBoard Edge, all patient data is processed locally, so monitoring continues without interruption during Internet outages. Once connectivity returns, the system automatically synchronizes with ThingsBoard Cloud, ensuring nothing is lost.

Here's how the technical implementation works:

• Wearable wristbands track vital signs like heart rate, oxygen levels, etc., while smart sensors monitor room conditions like temperature and humidity.
• All data is sent through gateways via standard protocols such as BLE, LoRaWAN, or MQTT.
• At the local level, ThingsBoard Edge processes the data in real time, linking it to specific residents, rooms, and zones.
• If a resident's vitals deviate from their baseline, the Rule Engine triggers automated alarms, sending instant notifications to caregivers.
• Caregivers can access real-time dashboards that display alarms, patient status, and environmental conditions at any time.
• Historical data can be sent to ThingsBoard Cloud for long-term storage, advanced analytics, and compliance reporting.

Figure 2. ThingsBoard Edge architecture for living assistance deployment. Sensors communicate via LoRaWAN, BLE, or other protocols to the local gateway, which processes all data and automation locally. ThingsBoard Cloud provides long-term analytics and remote access when connectivity is available.

For healthcare providers, implementation speed often determines success. ThingsBoard Professional Edition (PE) offers pre-built healthcare monitoring templates — including dashboards, alert logic, and device profiles — enabling facilities to deploy pilot systems in days rather than weeks. The open-source Community Edition supports equivalent functionality with additional configuration time.

Why It Pays Off

Implementing RPM systems and IoT solutions like Thingsboard Edge isn’t only about the return on investments — it’s also about the direct benefit to the people you care for. Explore our smart assisted living solution showing how IoT-enabled monitoring works in healthcare. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Prevent unnecessary hospital visits and readmissions. Continuous monitoring can detect early signs of trouble, allowing caregivers to step in before a crisis occurs.
• Optimize staff workload. Instead of spending hours on repetitive manual checks, caregivers can focus on residents who actually need attention.
• Lower infrastructure costs. Local data processing reduces reliance on constant, high-availability internet and keeps facilities from paying for expensive connectivity just to run safety systems.
• Shift from reactive to proactive care. Instead of waiting for the next check-in to uncover an issue, staff have a continuous, objective stream of health data for every resident.
• Improve wellbeing for everyone. Safer, calmer environments reduce burnout for staff while giving families peace of mind that their loved ones are always being looked after.

Beyond the Technologies

Technology alone won’t solve the challenges of rural healthcare. What makes a difference is how it’s applied. In regions with near-absent connectivity, healthcare facilities can leap forward by combining simple devices with intelligent platforms like ThingsBoard. The result is a system that not only keeps patients safer but also helps staff work smarter, reduces costs, and strengthens the overall fabric of community care.

As connectivity continues to expand, these edge-first solutions will form the backbone of more resilient healthcare networks — not just in Brazil, but in remote communities everywhere.

Next in this series: We’ll explore how Brazilian farmers are using IoT and edge computing for surviving droughts, responding to pest outbreaks, and optimizing resource use across plantations too vast for manual monitoring.

Interested in exploring edge-powered healthcare monitoring? Try ThingsBoard Edge platform now for free!