Diagnostic imaging rooms, nurses' stations and billing departments are among the most overlooked areas
In recent years, hospitals and healthcare networks have invested to enable the introduction and proliferation of electronic health records (EHRs) and to create IT infrastructures to support and obtain benefits from their specific use. There are additional sections in a hospital's IT network, however, that are too often overlooked. Vertiv experts have identified three areas where hospitals today could gain considerable benefits from a greater focus on investing in their IT infrastructure.
"Generally, hospitals are doing a great job in terms of updating their systems and IT infrastructure to support the use of EHRs. Traditionally they have prioritized uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems to ensure the availability of the most critical devices," said Angie McMillin, vice president of business initiatives at Vertiv. “However, we consistently detect gaps in some areas that have the potential to create real problems not only for hospitals but also for patients.”
Salt for diagnostics: Medical scans and images can benefit greatly from new technologies, starting with 4K resolution, which provides important details. These improvements, however, also require massive data transfer and low latency to perform as intended. Some legacy infrastructure equipment, such as KVM switches that allow easy access to numerous files and servers across multiple workstations, are not equipped to work with today's high-resolution images and video. Newer KVM switches enable high-resolution imaging. Doctors and surgeons must have access to the same high-definition images and video used in the broadcast industry.
Nurses' stations: Many hospitals rely on generators and UPS systems to provide backup power throughout the facility. It's a good theory, but if the centralized UPS system fails it can paralyze the routine, often urgent, work taking place throughout the hospital. Nurses' stations are particularly vulnerable because they rely on IT systems for patient status updates, medication management and treatment plans. A local UPS system with extended battery life can provide redundancy and ensure the availability of these critical IT systems. Nurses' stations often rely on a remote desktop or KVM switch to access and manage data, but too often these tools are rendered useless if network connectivity is lost. For this reason, a KVM switch capable of out-of-band management is a smart choice. In fact, out-of-band remote management is critical to the entire hospital. Too often, system maintenance interrupts critical activities related to patients' lives. A simple serial console server would be enough to allow IT staff to perform routine maintenance remotely without interrupting the important work of doctors and nurses.
Billing departments: Billing staff often transition from working with sensitive confidential patient data to managing non-sensitive applications. For example, while accessing a patient's record, they may open an Internet browser to search for information about an insurer. Without the proper tools, it is easy to create a vulnerability that could easily be exploited by a skilled hacker. Secure switches traditionally used in government applications enable secure switching between sensitive and non-sensitive platforms, and lend themselves to new uses in healthcare systems and anywhere there are privacy concerns.
