Physically, the internet is a specific computer network that connects millions of computing devices worldwide. Practically, it is an infrastructure that provides services to applications such as email, social networks, data storage, and communication (Kurose and Ross, 2013). The internet rose to prominence in the 1990s and affected virtually every industry in the global economy; healthcare is no exception. As we discussed in Chapter 2, Healthcare Foundations, clinical data is increasingly being stored electronically on computers, and third parties who perform analytics with this data often receive the data via the internet and use the cloud to store this data. Furthermore, the results of the analytics are often communicated back to the healthcare organization via an internet technology known as an application programming interface (API) by which the healthcare organization sends a request for specific information to a server and receives that information.

Aside from the typical data exchange cycle discussed throughout this book, which obviously relies heavily on the internet, there are some fringe methods through which the internet is affecting healthcare. Let's take a look at two of those methods here:

• Internet of Things
• Social media