The Future Of Care Provision Are Smart Hospitals

Simply put, smart hospitals are hospitals that optimize, redesign and/or build new clinical processes, management systems, and maybe even infrastructure, all enabled by underlying digitized networking infrastructure of interconnected assets, to provide a valuable service or insight that was not possible or available earlier, to achieve better patient care, experience, and operational efficiency. 

Digital vs. smart

It is important to mention that digitalization doesn’t make hospitals smart by default. Implementing digital systems, such as robotic process automation in healthcare, is a step towards becoming smart, but it is not the end goal in itself. For example, investing in EHR and abandoning paper-based records doesn’t make a hospital smart, but it is a step in the right direction. Digitalized systems will enable you to capture data. Then you can establish a data strategy and benefit from analytics in healthcare. 

Pinterest/ Hfmmagazine | The modern industries are being profoundly affected by technological digitalization and automation, with healthcare not being an exception.

Smart hospitals are inspired by the idea that patients are customers and expect medical facilities to cater to their needs. As the term “customer” indicates an active and more demanding buyer, intelligent hospitals do their best to offer a unique experience instead of purely focusing on treatments. They even extend their services to patients’ caregivers. For instance, Stanford Hospital retains a health librarian who will help family members find resources to understand the diagnosis and prepare to support the patient at home.

Advantages of smart hospitals 

With growing pressures on healthcare and governments around the world facing rising healthcare costs, smart hospitals hold the potential to drive greater efficiency, improve quality of care and provide access for more people than ever before. This article looks at a number of use cases and at what telcos are doing in this space. The pressures on the healthcare sector are considerable, and with the growing and aging global population, these pressures are projected to grow.

Pinterest/ Hfmmagazine | Smart hospitals can support the optimization of a patient journey through a hospital, starting from in the home

Smart hospitals maximize productivity and provide better patient satisfaction and flexibility, thanks to the digital transformation of the healthcare industry. Today’s world is rapidly evolving, but our hospital infrastructure is often left to play catch up; countless hospitals are over 100 years old and are still in operation, they have very limited possibilities for advancement, yet they have to deal with the increased demand, and they can not do this with the infrastructure and technology that they currently have.

Conclusion 

The current hotspots for smart hospitals are Canada, Finland, South Korea, Dubai, Singapore, and Australia. Not all the hospitals currently truly qualify as smart hospitals as they don’t necessarily address all of the prerequisites of smart hospitals. Yet, some of the advanced hospitals which are closer to the journey of becoming smart include the Humber River Valley Hospital (Canada), Nuffield Health Bristol Hospital (UK), Farrer Park Hospital (Singapore), Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (South Korea) and the Royal Adelaide Hospital (Australia).

Pixabay/ Pexels | Traditional healthcare facilities are attempting to redefine themselves in light of smart hospitals

The global smart hospital market is valued at $29 billion in 2021 and is expected to jump to $59 billion by 2026. Another research suggests that the smart hospital market will already cross the $63 billion mark by 2023. Either way, it’s a promising field, and many smart hospital solutions are on the market.