Are Smart Hospitals The Future Of Healthcare Providers?

With the power to modify the healthcare system, smart hospitals dispense a range of benefits to both the patients and healthcare providers. A smart hospital streamlines the communication process, caters to the many needs of healthcare providers, improves the patient’s relationship, and maintains costs. Correspondingly, a patient too, undergoes a smooth treatment journey, beginning right from scheduling appointments to submitting invoices.

So what are smart hospitals and how did they become a reality?

The past few decades saw an exponential rise in chronic disorders like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. This trend has been most noted in developed countries that have a considerable demand for healthcare solutions. Here, standard hospitals faced issues like providing the best services while maintaining low costs, achieving optimum utilization of human resources, and handling the rising demand. These issues created a way for tech companies to set foot in the healthcare domain. And with that, Smart Hospitals were formulated.

A healthcare center or hospital is said to be ‘smart’ when it makes use of digitized networking infrastructure to perform its operations and functioning. This also means incorporating advanced software and devices to make the overall healthcare processes more efficient and smooth.

Practices such as the implementation of invoicing and transactions systems, implementing high hygiene standards, inventory records management, and monitoring air quality within hospital premises are some processes that are usually followed by smart hospitals.

In spite of having many benefits associated with it, the rise of smart hospitals is held back by certain factors. These factors include the high cost of installing shared devices and a general lack of understanding of advanced technologies like IoT. Another major limitation for smart hospitals is their heavy dependence on data. Data breaches consisting of theft or leakage of sensitive healthcare data are always a hazard.

To solve these issues, many MedTech and Tech giants have been introducing various solutions. Some of these companies are Qualcomm Life, GE Healthcare, Siemens, Philips, Medtronic, Samsung, Oracle, Microsoft, and several others.

The growth of smart hospitals looks promising and could take place soon due to advantageous factors like the adoption of instruments and connected devices, favorable policies, growing awareness about IoT, and increased government spending.

Similarly, more collaboration, mergers, and acquisitions taking place between the healthcare providers and tech companies will lead to optimum conditions for the growth of  smart hospitals and increase their reach in new geographies.

Resources: Smart Hospitals Market, By Delveinsight.