While virtual care implementations have been a significant focus in the healthcare sector over the past three years, healthcare organizations have not overlooked the need to modernize their physical spaces as well.

In the hospital setting, modern patient rooms are undergoing a transformation to provide more consumer-oriented comforts, resembling the amenities one might find in a comfortable living room. A prime example is Penn Medicine’s newly constructed pavilion at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Here, patient rooms are equipped with a spacious 75-inch smart TV that offers access to essential care information, entertainment options, and control over room features like lighting and temperature.

Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, the President and CEO of Mayo Clinic, emphasized the necessity of updating physical healthcare infrastructure, even before the pandemic, but especially during it. He stressed that this physical transformation has been neglected and requires significant national attention and investment in the coming years.

These modernized physical spaces also benefit clinicians, facilitating the transition from virtual to in-person care. In a context marked by staffing challenges and financial constraints, smart hospital solutions are emerging to automate routine tasks and create touchless opportunities for healthcare providers at the bedside. This shift aims to achieve a more integrated and seamless approach to patient care.

As both patients and clinicians increasingly demand greater connectivity, encompassing everything from streaming capabilities to clinical mobility, hospital rooms are evolving to meet these expectations. Healthcare organizations need not feel overwhelmed by starting from scratch; instead, they can devise strategies with interdisciplinary teams and make use of the tools already at their disposal.

At its core, a smart hospital utilizes real-time data to make informed decisions, supported by automation that reduces manual workloads for staff and extends care beyond the hospital’s physical boundaries. The Patient Room ‘Next’ framework outlines five main objectives: integration, real-time data utilization, automated documentation, touchless technology, and adaptable spaces.

To successfully implement this approach, assembling an interdisciplinary team of stakeholders is essential from the outset. Such a team is more likely to ensure the full adoption and utilization of smart hospital solutions, involving everyone from bedside clinicians to the IT department. This team is also instrumental in prioritizing security and privacy concerns alongside goals related to staffing, budgeting, and workflow efficiencies. As healthcare extends beyond the hospital, data security remains paramount, especially as many smart hospital solutions incorporate video and audio components, necessitating careful consideration of patient privacy and safety.

Healthcare organizations will continue to emphasize data, with ongoing efforts to transition to the cloud in support of modernization. The next phase involves aggregating and using this data effectively to reduce the cognitive load on clinicians and enhance clinical decision support.

Importantly, hospitals do not need to replace their existing solutions entirely. Instead, they can maximize the potential of their current tools. This will involve implementing an optimized framework of solutions to achieve the desired outcomes for the organization.

Patient Room ‘Next’ is not about incorporating the latest flashy technology but rather about constructing a roadmap toward improved patient care outcomes. With a solid foundation in core IT technologies, healthcare organizations can begin implementing these changes without disrupting their current operations.

Healthcare institutions have been increasing their investments in both preventive and reactive cybersecurity solutions due to the ever-changing threat landscape. It is estimated that the healthcare industry will spend approximately $125 billion on security measures between 2020 and 2025.

Despite these efforts, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) regularly investigates numerous reported breaches of unsecured protected health information, with a significant portion of compromised patient data originating from network file servers.

These breaches come with severe financial, operational, regulatory, and reputational consequences. According to a 2023 IBM report, the average cost of a healthcare data breach has surged to almost $11 million and continues to rise, largely due to hacking incidents, including ransomware attacks, as documented by the OCR.

Healthcare organizations are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks because of the potential impact on critical life-saving operations. A 2022 report by the Ponemon Institute and Proofpoint, based on surveys of healthcare IT and security professionals, highlights negative patient outcomes as a major consequence of these cyber incidents.

It’s evident that the traditional approach to healthcare cybersecurity is insufficient in mitigating the impact of cyberattacks on this vital industry. One primary reason is that healthcare data, which requires protection, is not easily identifiable or locatable using existing technologies.

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How Hospitals Can Gain Visibility Into Their Data

Without a clear understanding of the location and characteristics of their data, organizations cannot effectively secure it. Locating patient information within an organization is a complex task that often necessitates programming skills.

Outdated technologies reliant on rules-based pattern matching for identifying protected health information are challenging to configure correctly and are no longer adequate for safeguarding healthcare organizations from their most significant risks.

Fortunately, advancements in artificial intelligence are driving solutions to identify and catalog electronic protected health information (ePHI). Deep learning empowers AI models to emulate the capabilities of trained humans in recognizing ePHI, eliminating the need for arduous programming and constant refinement of search patterns and detection rules. This outdated approach restricts organizations aiming to scale their security efforts.

How Hospitals Can Meet Better Standardization and Compliance

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers guidance and resources for implementing security measures in compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule. This rule aims to enhance patient data protection and reduce the impact of cyberattacks by securing ePHI held or managed by HIPAA-regulated entities.

According to NIST 800-66r2, “The ePHI that a regulated entity creates, receives, maintains, or transmits must be protected against reasonably anticipated threats, hazards, and impermissible uses and/or disclosures.”

The document provides updated and essential implementation guidance for HIPAA-regulated entities to proactively safeguard patient data and manage ePHI-related risks. As the industry standard for best practices, NIST 800-66r2 directs organizations to have an incident response plan for all areas where ePHI is used, stored, or shared.

The initial step toward achieving this is identifying all the locations and repositories of ePHI, including those obscure corners where it might be stored. Healthcare organizations can’t protect what they can’t see, so the first priority is to identify and catalog ePHI to shield it from cyberattacks. This is where a unified cloud-native application protection platform can prove invaluable.

Healthcare organizations looking to modernize their cybersecurity approach should consider adopting an AI-powered data security platform to assist in identifying and cataloging ePHI. Traditionally, this process has been cumbersome due to the unstructured nature of over 80 percent of healthcare data.

By leveraging AI-powered solutions, healthcare organizations can efficiently manage and identify ePHI, thereby reducing risks and cutting costs. Those who have embraced such solutions report decreased vulnerability to cyberattacks, reduced resource requirements for data management, and lower cyber insurance premiums.

The urgency of digitizing healthcare has never been more apparent. Hospitals face mounting pressures due to increased healthcare demand from a global aging population, staff shortages, and the need to deliver higher-quality care. These challenges are driving a long-overdue transformation in healthcare infrastructure. Simultaneously, new software business models are reducing the barriers to adopting technologies that can integrate IT, OT, and medical systems. This integration aims to boost efficiency, flexibility, cost management, productivity, and overall patient experiences. For hospitals, the time to embrace this transformation is now.

However, it’s crucial to acknowledge that many digital transformation initiatives fail, and healthcare, with its complex and fragmented infrastructure, is particularly susceptible to such failures. To establish connected care and enhance operational and clinical outcomes, it is imperative to apply technology with a clear goal in mind, fostering the vision of a smart hospital where data from smart devices like tags and badges is collected, analyzed, and utilized for data-driven decision-making.

One such example is Location Intelligence and Real-Time Location Services (RTLS). While the concept of RTLS in hospitals is not new, its successful implementation requires careful planning. The benefits are well-established, including improved patient experiences, increased efficiency in asset and staff management, and reduced operational and maintenance costs. To ensure success, RTLS must be a fundamental component of a hospital’s digital transformation strategy, implemented with specific outcomes in mind and seamlessly integrated into the overall digitalization strategy.

For instance, hospital staff often spend significant time searching for medical equipment, diverting their attention from patient care. RTLS, through tagged equipment and a hospital-wide sensor network, can provide real-time location and maintenance data, enhancing staff efficiency and patient experiences. Additionally, it allows for better asset utilization by indicating whether equipment is in use, its condition, and triggering alerts for low inventory levels or asset movement. This approach minimizes investment and maintenance costs.

Furthermore, RTLS can be used to track patients during their hospital journeys, ensuring a smoother experience and optimized patient flow. Patients increasingly expect a digitalized healthcare experience, and integrating RTLS into a patient-facing app can significantly enhance patient satisfaction and flow.

Ideally, the smart hospital experience should begin at home, with patients checking in via an app, specifying preferences, and receiving guidance to assigned parking spaces upon arrival. Inside the hospital, the RTLS system guides them to their destination, and hospital staff are promptly notified. App-based wayfinding simplifies navigation and reduces the burden on hospital staff. Patients and staff can also receive real-time updates on treatment schedules and wait times, improving patient flow and capacity management.

The potential use cases for RTLS are diverse, and the journey toward a fully smart hospital is complex. Successful digitalization initiatives require a holistic strategy. Implementing an IoT lighting-based system provides an integrated infrastructure for lighting, temperature control, and RTLS, enhancing sustainability, operational efficiency, and inventory management.

To succeed in digital transformation and reap the financial, experiential, and operational benefits, technologies like RTLS must be integrated into a comprehensive IoT strategy with data acquisition and analysis at its core. This approach allows for the seamless integration of multiple technologies to address various use cases, including energy conservation, lighting control, space optimization, and RTLS. Careful planning ensures that these tools work harmoniously together.