Inside healthcare's emerging technology problem

Healthcare organizations (HCOs) must stay up-to-date with advanced technologies, but they also must ensure they maximize the value of their investments. Achieving this requires having a modern network and infrastructure to support continued technological advancements and digital health innovation. In fact, 77 percent of respondents in a HIMSS survey on digital infrastructure for innovation [BL1] agreed that IT infrastructure is a key enabler of their digital health initiatives.

Implementing emerging technology can be challenging and complex for healthcare IT teams, especially given the need to connect disparate systems for orchestrating digital workflows while maintaining security, compliance, privacy and safety. It’s one of the reasons that 70 percent of respondents in the same HIMSS survey also “agree that investments in connectivity solutions and services should be made proactively.

The right infrastructure provides the speed, bandwidth, security and adaptability that HCO’s need to roll out innovative technology solutions.  Healthcare organizations with inadequate or outdated digital infrastructure cannot innovate at the speed required to support mission-critical emerging tech and, therefore, risk diminishing patient care.

Enhance the patient experience and enable improved models of care  

For health systems and physician practices, emerging technologies offer a wealth of opportunity to improve care, lower costs and relieve physicians from some of the more burdensome administrative tasks. In the HIMSS survey 68 percent of respondents said that innovation initiatives were a critical or high priority in order to drive operational, financial and/or process efficiencies. Another 64 percent cited the ability to enhance the patient experience and enable new models of care, such as telehealth, as critical or high priorities for innovation.

Some of the areas of most significant technological advancement include telemedicine, personalized medicine, genomics, wearables, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, extended reality (which encompasses virtual reality and augmented reality), 3D printing and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). For example, the 3D printing healthcare market is anticipating a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 percent over the next decade, and the IoMT market is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 23.4 percent over the forecast period 2021 - 2026. The adoption of AI has also dramatically increased, with nine in ten hospitals reporting they have an artificial intelligence strategy. 

Consumers, as much as healthcare systems, are demanding more technological innovation. About 30 percent of U.S. adults use wearable healthcare devices, and 82 percent are willing to share the health data from wearables with their care providers in an effort to improve their overall health. Similarly, 80 percent of smartphone users say they are interested in receiving healthcare alerts. The adoption of telemedicine continues to increase, as researchers found that 76 percent of patients who have had a telehealth visit would prefer to continue using the technology in the future.

Simplifying the move to a hybrid network architecture

Numerous emerging technologies, such as IoMT and AI, require a cloud-first environment to handle the speed and volume of data these technologies generate. As a result, many health systems are transitioning to hybrid network architecture and distributed operating models across locations, clouds and users.

To help health systems simplify the management and migration of complex, large-scale networks, many are looking for network partners who can offer a consultative approach and help design customized solutions optimized for their specific needs. Healthcare IT requires solutions that include connectivity options that offer a great deal of flexibility and can support hybrid WAN configurations across various locations. They also need solutions for LAN Management that improve traffic flow on the local area network, expand capacity, centralize administration and extend network cybersecurity protection.

Additionally, a solution offering a cloud-based portal that allows for real-time insights and administration of the network, including traffic flow and bandwidth capacity, makes management easier. And using a managed or co-managed service can alleviate some of the resource demands on IT teams. In fact, according to Frost & Sullivan, 80 percent of organizations evaluating SD-WAN prefer a fully or co-managed network.

Whether utilizing 3D printing for prosthetics or collecting and analyzing health data from IoMT devices, healthcare organizations need modern technologies to provide better care at lower costs. Getting the correct network infrastructure and high-capacity bandwidth in place will help these organizations take advantage of today’s technologies and be ready for the technological innovation that’s coming.

Want to support ongoing innovation in your healthcare organization? Contact Spectrum Enterprise to learn more about how we can help.