This has never been more obvious than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased in-patient admissions and remote consultations led to intense demands on the network.With physical appointments limited by safety restrictions, virtual consultations surged, driving the adoption of applications such as telehealth and remote monitoring.Additionally, healthcare organisations are leveraging their investments in the Internet of Things (IoT) to analyse both business and clinical processes.
They are providing automated remote consultations to patients in self-isolation through chatbots.They are also exploring the opportunities for using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to help diagnose conditions and treat patients.Healthcare providers have quickly realised that, in many cases, their traditional legacy infrastructure simply cannot keep up with these new demands.Their existing networks are not sufficiently strong nor reliable to support the new applications and technologies – a ‘good enough’ network is actually no longer good enough. Instead, healthcare providers understand that they need the support of high-performing IT networks to help them deliver their priorities and objectives safely and efficiently.
This is driving IT infrastructure modernisation across Europe. Fuelled by COVID-19, digitally enabled remote care will drive 70% growth in spending on connected health technologies by providers and life science companies by 2023.But healthcare providers’ demands aren’t confined to bandwidth; they are also looking for flexibility, agility, security and cost management.They want the ability to predict and adapt to different demand levels long-term. And while the infrastructure needs to support clinical workflows and the patient experience, it also needs to ensure compliance with data regulations and to keep patient information safe.
Experience-First Networks
Importantly, healthcare organisations understand that the experience of both patients and the clinical workforce is paramount. And perhaps for the first time, they consider the network to be a strategic component of the organisation, rather than just a source of cost efficiencies. They see the modern, experience-driven network as an enabler of positive customer outcomes, providing the predictability, security and scalability they demand.
“The impact of the pandemic has certainly reiterated the need for healthcare systems to move to what we call ‘value-based health’, where the purpose of the healthcare organisation is to maximise the value delivered to patients. Connectedness is integral to this. said IDC analyst Silvia Piai.
“The integration of care within the broader healthcare ecosystem and the personalisation of services to better adapt to patients’ needs are probably the most important business shifts that healthcare organisations need to pursue…delivering personalised care relies on frictionless information exchange to enable collaboration to support decision-making and to automate workflows.”
The adoption of hybrid and multicloud models are redefining the parameters of healthcare, underpinning the secure networking needed to support those environments. Providers are now looking to cloud-based networking for operational efficiency, workforce management and for patient data specific solutions, including EHR, medical imaging and medical information exchange.
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