As with all customer facing industries, the trend in healthcare is about pushing computing power closer to the end user and customers, in this case providers and patients. And any downtime puts patient’s lives at risk, as well as threaten the financial fitness and reputation of the healthcare organization. If you’re not worried about what’s happening with your healthcare facility’s IT equipment – in the enterprise data center and distributed large and small edge facilities throughout your system – just think about this: It’s estimated that 70% of hospitals have had a patient accidentally injured during unplanned downtime. Is that a risk your reputation can handle?
What are you doing to ensure that doesn’t happen? And that your edge facilities have 100% uptime and your users have real-time access to electronic health records (EHR), electronic medical records (EMR), patient billing information, and electronic protected health information (ePHI)? The IT infrastructure storing and giving you access to this information is just as critical as the software scheduling the operating rooms, running in the clinic, and ensuring you have the right supplies.
No matter where the computing equipment is located – the enterprise data center or an edge facility within a clinic – they have the same demands and accountability requirements. But since edge locations lack appropriate IT and security staff, it’s critical to be able to monitor the equipment from afar. To manage remote equipment, secure the space, and assess potential issues to ensure the business of saving lives continues without interruption. And that requires monitoring and video equipment that works independently of network topology with 1005 uptime and reliability.
In addition to saving lives, healthcare is a business – that competes for attention of its customers (aka patients), while balancing privacy issues and heavy regulation with being financially sound. So, the unique needs of edge locations, and the lack of consistency across deployments in many organizations, require unique solutions.
Managing these edge locations is only feasible at scale with automated reporting, integrated alerts, and hands-off management. And as these servers and the associated connectivity equipment become more distributed and interconnected, it’s becoming more and more important to monitor and manage the technology stack with IT staff in a centralized location, since clinical staff are not trained in IT matters, to enable real-time patient solutions within each healthcare facility.
Want to learn more? Download our white paper "Healthcare at The Edge" and learn how forward-thinking healthcare providers are leveraging the edge effectively, ensuring they maintain critical service availability, make informed decisions faster, and deliver the services their patients require unhindered.
