The need for remote access to healthcare over the past few years had shifted how the entire healthcare industry provided care outside the walls of a medical facility.
This shift sped up the digital transformation of the healthcare industry, which in turn led to the development of online platforms to support this revolution. While the days of remote-only care continue to evolve, digital transformation is essential to helping to achieve the industry’s vision of care capabilities in person and remotely. Care fluidity raises the importance of cybersecurity as more and more medical devices will need networks. With continued digitalization efforts, hospitals and other healthcare providers must invest in advanced connectivity solutions to help keep digital tools and systems functioning optimally.
The challenges of digitalization in healthcare
The challenges of digitalization in a healthcare facility are great and varied. An ongoing issue for the healthcare industry is the tremendous amount of data that needs to be processed. Every patient is associated with a wide array of individual data, including demographics, genomics, clinical history, medications, laboratory data, sensors, vitals and much more. A hospital must also consider data source categories including administrative data, inventory, staff, environmental, so on and so forth. Organizing all of this data in a meaningful way is a daunting undertaking; accessing and transmitting all that data can create bottlenecks, or data silos, that can slow down clinicians and administrators. Generous bandwidth is needed to unlock those data silos so that healthcare professionals can tap critical data in time-sensitive situations.
Another big challenge is cybersecurity. Hackers increasingly target healthcare providers, since they possess sensitive information and critical systems, access to which can prove very lucrative for threat actors. As medical facilities continue to digitalize, more medical devices and equipment are connected to networks via IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) technology. Connected devices can offer tremendous advantages, including maintenance and resource utilization, but they can also create new points of entry for threat actors. Once a hacker gains access to one machine, they are more likely to infiltrate other similar machines connected to the same network with malware.
Although the challenges might seem large, they pale in comparison to not acting. It can be a seamless process with a few helpful solutions that can be easily integrated into the healthcare setting, with strong and reliable connectivity.
Private 5G and Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) — a powerful connectivity combination
A truly connected hospital requires the free flow of information. Unlocking those aforementioned data silos, however, demands exponentially greater bandwidth, a feat that the right private 5G solution can help achieve. A dedicated, localized network, private 5G offers high availability and high reliability for any organization that needs near-immediate access to mission-critical information. Private 5G delivers low latency and enhanced security.
A MEC can connect a hospital full of medical devices with a private onsite 5G network, processing and storing data locally to support the most critical and sensitive applications. It also facilitates connection to remote data centers or other offsite locations, when necessary, through a secure SD WAN connection. This setup delivers enhanced data security, increased flexibility and peace of mind.
Private 5G and MEC combine the power of 5G connectivity and edge computing to deliver near real-time data and insights that make a range of healthcare services possible. Having MEC closer to network infrastructure and, therefore, closer to IoMT devices and end users enables the near real-time processing of the biometric data produced by those devices. Edge analytics can filter and analyze data in order to enable near-real-time insights that inform healthcare decision-making.
With this setup, near real-time interactions between healthcare providers and medical devices can be made possible. This brand of near real-time, personalized, data-driven healthcare can help drive better healthcare outcomes, which, ultimately, is the mission of any healthcare provider.
Not all connectivity is the same
It’s no question that connected hospitals are the future, but healthcare providers must consider that not all connectivity is created equal. Security, low latency and advanced analytics must be incorporated in order for healthcare providers to realize the full potential of connectivity solutions in healthcare settings. Controlling, harnessing and securing data is paramount in an increasingly digital world, and is critical for hospitals looking to streamline operations and enhance care.
Digitalization has already transformed the way our healthcare space has operated in just a few short years. By working hand in hand with cutting edge technologies, healthcare facilities can truly transform ‘the meaning of care’ now and in the future.