By Bhupesh Arora, Business Head, Digital Energy, Schneider Electric
Digitalization comes with the potential to influence the practice of medicine and the delivery of healthcare, ushering in an era of transformative efficiency, improved patient care, and innovative solutions. It is empowering medical professionals with real-time information, enabling remote patient monitoring, and facilitating data-driven decision-making. Technology is bringing in a variety of streamlining pertaining to data management and electronic health records. It is enhancing the patient experience and driving research, diagnostics, and treatment to new frontiers.
Healthcare systems have seen significant advancements with their innovative and revolutionary approach. The Indian government has recognized the significance of the healthcare sector and is pushing various reforms to put it on fast track. Ayushman Bharat is the world’s largest government-funded scheme, reforming 500 million people through digitization.
Digitization enables a plethora of experiences, which include using AI to check imaging to reduce the time between patient testing and diagnosis while also helping reduce occurrences of misdiagnosis.
Monitoring of patients by cameras and sensors to reduce the risk of falls for vulnerable patients and active monitoring of patients to alert healthcare providers to any clinical changes also help in enhancing the patient experience at modern hospitals.
Today’s building automation systems have more memory available than ever before. This increases the system’s ability to compile more data. Better analysis of data allows hospital officials to offer regulators complete and detailed reports surrounding both the rate of air changes in rooms and the rate of energy consumption. Data analytics tools also help facility staff to work with trending data in order to optimize building performance through data-driven system adjustments.
In a hospital, IT/OT integration enables medical devices to exchange and share patient information through IoT connections for real-time visibility, resulting in better patient analysis and outcomes. As per estimates, almost every third of smart devices currently on the market are in healthcare buildings.
This explains why the branch of the IoT that supports healthcare is increasingly known as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). It links and captures data from devices such as online pulse oximeters, heartrate monitors, and insulin pumps.
At a practical level, IoT-powered intelligent patient solutions can give patients better control over their environmental preferences and easier access to care information, such as doctor’s appointments. IoT also enables the creation of environments that are more responsive to patients and staff.
Digitization is helping prepare smart healthcare for tomorrow’s care
Healthcare organizations approach power management reactively rather than proactively. The tendency to react, rather than plan and anticipate, gets the attention it deserves only after an incident or crisis. Fortunately, digitization is making it easier to take a more proactive approach, prepare, and anticipate the kinds of power-related challenges facilities are likely to encounter. To build resilience health systems should consider evolving diagnostic and preventive technologies and innovations such as microgrids, power automation, power event analysis, and condition-based maintenance
Power quality is also becoming more polluted. The power electronics present in digital devices generate harmonics, and as equipment and devices become smaller and more digitized, they also become more sensitive to damage from poor power quality. Healthcare organizations needs to investigate the types of equipment and digital applications that can help them mitigate these problems and achieve and maintain
Most information technology (IT) services within hospital organizations are vulnerable to cybersecurity issues with Hospital Information System comprising of patient files and medical data along with hospital operations technology systems (biomedical systems). These systems are critical because they guarantee the overall service continuity of the hospital infrastructure, including power supply, air renewal, and safety and security management. High-quality power throughout their electrical network. With digital services, experts monitor your facilities 24/7 using advanced analytics to identify areas for optimization (e.g., energy efficiency, costs, decarbonization) while helping to avoid cyberattack risks to your infrastructure.
Digitization offers an integrated and comprehensive range of expertise in each healthcare facility domain, from power and building systems to data centers, cybersecurity, microgrids, and more. Thereby, creating a Sustainable, Resilient and Patient centric environment with digitalization of healthcare.
