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This article is part of our Opinions section, where we invite industry professionals to share their views on the most pressing technology questions of our time.
This article is close to my heart after spending a significant amount of time in the hospital recently. The good news is that everything is okay now, thanks to the high-quality care my family received. However, after my time with my family in the hospital, I felt it was an opportune time to share some thoughts and experiences on what considerations go into the IT services that ensure the highest level of patient care.
The primary goal for all healthcare providers is to deliver the best patient care, so how does IT further the goal of improving the patient experience?
To achieve this, IT must provide functionalities to hospital and GP staff that enable faster responses, reduce time spent on administrative tasks, and ensure patients have access to relevant information.
The backbone for all these core IT services is the network infrastructure. This can then be overlaid with the latest technology enhancements, whether that’s X-Ray scanning or healthcare monitoring services, or even the databases of critical patient information for all departments. As such, the foundation ensures a well-designed, reliable but agile network infrastructure.
IT must also provide robust wired and wireless connectivity, which is extensible across many of the clinics and buildings within the healthcare provider’s remit. This will be vital for ensuring the best customer care, as the various core healthcare devices will need to connect to this.
Devices include the standard devices we see in IT, such as PCs, laptops and printers, but also the much-needed specialised healthcare systems, such as MRI scanners. The key consideration when building these is enabling seamless connectivity while maintaining security. Traditional networks can do this in principle, but often end up rigid. As such, it’s highly desired to move towards more software-defined networking. By doing so, it can enhance security while providing simplified managed networks that are adaptable to the changing needs of the healthcare provider.
This infrastructure may be linking not just the buildings and clinics locally, but also on a wider scale. That’s when elements such as WAN connectivity become key. Paramedics potentially on 4G/5G services along with the more fixed locations need to be cohesively connected together.
SD-WAN services form a key foundation for building this as a core component of these networks.
Secondly is the core applications and patient care records. All teams treating a patient and their journey through the healthcare provider must be smooth. From first diagnosis to those handling ongoing care, need clear, readily available information across all teams. Even more important is ensuring, even during shift changes, that the patient sees no changes in the treatment received. To do this, communication and data sharing are key. These health records in turn need to be easily but securely accessed.
Cloud is something that all businesses are either fully adopting or on the transition to. In the same manner, this is just as important for healthcare providers. It increases the agility and ease of connecting many teams or sites to the mentioned critical patient databases. Ensuring that the key patient data is available to pharmacists, paramedics or specialist patient care teams following being triaged, ensures that the customer experience remains the same as the patient is cared for. Keep in mind the need to access the same data, potentially from any location, is key to providing information ahead of a patient arriving in a critical situation. Which will make all the difference in emergencies.
This data naturally has regulations and key considerations around it. In many cases, you may find requirements on ensuring data sovereignty will have wider considerations than just moving to a single platform. It can be common to need to link your own private cloud services with SaaS providers to find the right balance.
It is important to map what systems you currently have and where the link which data sets for which teams to access. Persona mapping this out along with your core applications is the best starting point for this task.
Providing more and better remote patient services became critically important during the Covid-19 pandemic. Video and calling platforms like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex enable triaging of less urgent healthcare situations and safely assist those who have difficulty travelling. These tools enable healthcare professionals to keep in touch and follow up with patients, reducing time for both parties.
When looking at collaboration platforms as a whole, the key element will be considering ease of use. You cannot expect the patients to have accounts or to potentially have software installed, so the ability to dial in using mobiles, phones or even just connect via a webpage is key. Both Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams, for example, enable this function with guest access and support for almost all standard IT devices or analogue phones.
Expanding on this, it is becoming more common for healthcare providers to have a bespoke app on phones for booking, managing and joining appointments. While they are not building traditional telephony functions into these apps, you may find the app is linking directly to the cloud calling services provided by the vendors mentioned above. As such, integration between these applications is key to ensuring that from a patient consideration, it is transparent.
These services are further enhanced by the healthcare provider then being able to prescribe follow-up medication or appointments with the patient from their internal systems or cloud services, which then can be maintained and accessed by local pharmacists.
Security is extremely important. When anyone is within your care, the expectation is that they are safe. This includes ensuring parents are safe within the healthcare provider’s building, but also from an IT data perspective of the type of information being collected to help get them on the mend.
The core IT infrastructure, as previously mentioned, will also house traditional security systems, such as building management for door/access control and CCTV systems. The IT services as a whole need to be linked into these conversations to explore methods to automate emergency responses, from locking down access into the building to the use of AI to detect behaviour patterns via the CCTV systems.
Looking at camera solutions or software to further enable the tools available to the building management and security teams will help further protect the patients. This could be rolling out camera solutions such as Meraki or enhancing the existing camera solutions with software from providers such as Meld CX who can provide machine vision.
Then we come to the core IT security considerations. With such critical data sets collected – and being required to connect so many additional IT solutions from IoT or third parties within a healthcare provider’s network – you need the highest level of protection.
That’s why protecting IT services has become a core part of any design of the networks. It has to go beyond just typical considerations of deploying firewalls and be an integral integration into the whole infrastructure decisions.
This means looking at techniques such as micro-segmentation, which is achieved not just by manual configurations on the infrastructure but by dynamic policies. The previously mentioned software-defined networking techniques link heavily to this. This will enable networks to be built that can be easily adjusted and understood to protect from breaches.
These should be further enhanced by linking an end-to-end detection tooling, which can link the core solutions together. When exploring the overall vendors for this, having one that not just focuses on the network but has extensive security tooling available enables a true end-to-end solution that accounts for both
Naturally, achieving all these goals while staying within the budget for each fiscal year can be a lengthy topic. However, simply put, it is completely possible with a good IT provider to help ensure you are maximising the use of your spending while ensuring to align the right vendor technologies that can overlap and achieve multiple goals within one solution.
One of the best ways to do this is typically by exploring different procurement programs the vendors provide. For instance, the use of license enterprise agreements, which vendors such as Cisco, Microsoft and Palo Alto provide. These typically come with a range of commercial benefits outside of pure cost considerations.
In addition, exploring the full roadmap and deployment cycles in alignment with budget allocations can enable you to leverage better discounts from vendors by providing clear forecasts of future spending. By doing this and working with a good partner with relationships at the vendors, you can gain access to discount programs for your organisation for a set time. By combining this with mapping to your calendar year, you can enable the project spend to be split across multiple financial years to fit within your budget goals.
As a closing thought, our role in IT is to empower doctors, nurses, and support teams to deliver the best possible care to patients. By aligning our IT strategies with the goals of healthcare providers, we can leverage technology to enhance patient experiences, streamline operations, and ensure the highest level of care even in the most challenging times.
The advancements in network infrastructure, remote patient care and security measures discussed in this article are just the beginning. As we continue to innovate and adapt, the potential for IT to transform healthcare is immense. These are only a few thoughts and considerations as well, with so much more which can be expanded and explored.
I encourage healthcare providers to embrace these technologies and work closely with IT professionals to create a seamless, efficient and secure healthcare environment. Together, we can make a significant impact on patient care and outcomes.
Reflecting on my personal experience, I am grateful for the high-quality care my family received. It is a testament to the dedication and expertise of healthcare professionals and the critical role of IT in supporting their efforts.
