ABOUT
Smart Hospitals
Smart hospitals incorporate state-of-the art hospital design with the latest technological advancements that are all interconnected by digital platforms to fundamentally re-engineer how care is delivered across a wider health ecosystem.
At the heart of the smart health concept is the use of advanced technologies to automate and optimize processes to improve existing procedures and to support new and alternative models of treatment and care. The consumer experience is highly data driven, which gives rise to targeted, personalized, integrated care. At the enterprise level, operational efficiencies occur through process optimization and automation of routine tasks. These include front-, middle- and back-office activities, such as digital-first user experiences, virtual care models, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and digital inventory management and automated supply chains.
The vision of a smart hospital is broadly based. For some, the focus is on investing in technologies that deliver a more targeted set of high-value specialized services within a wider network of partners. For others, pathways go beyond traditional hospital walls and into the community and home. By becoming the anchor or hub in their communities, hospitals can play a critical role in linking and strengthening the health system as it moves care to anytime and anywhere. They can step up as a member of an interconnected, wider ecosystem to help drive health goals around prevention, population health and quality of life outcomes.
BUSINESS
Why Smart Health Technologies
New technologies have altered consumer expectations. More of today’s patients want healthcare services to be delivered with greater efficiency, such as easily scheduling doctor appointments and conveniently accessing their health data generated across care settings. They want their experience to be as frictionless, comfortable, and reassuring as possible, with minimal waits and delays. As such, the patient is evolving into a consumer, whose needs and preferences need to be addressed to achieve optimal ‘customer satisfaction’, a notion previously alien to the healthcare industry.
Meanwhile, physicians and hospital staff want to focus on delivering the best possible patient care without getting bogged down in administrative duties or having to manually scramble together patient data.
Faced with these challenges and demands, a host of new technologies can now be integrated into care delivery. This includes 3-D printing, telemedicine, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, precision medicine, Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors, next-generation telecommunications, augmented/virtual reality, genomics, and more. Adoption of these technologies is being driven by both immediate needs (e.g., cost control and efficiency optimization) and longer-term goals (especially greater precision, fewer errors, and better outcomes).
While most hospitals are only beginning to adopt some of these smart technologies, those that do embrace the full possibilities of digital transformation will be best positioned to deliver superior care experiences and outcomes, while driving out inefficiencies from their processes to help healthcare professionals.
smart Health Technologies
Our Approach
We see the old model of hospitals as stand-alone facilities that provide all services to all people as increasingly inefficient. Moreover, hospitals are becoming just one component of larger, interdependent ecosystems that include multiple other facilities (e.g., clinics, primary care providers, pharmacies, rehabilitation centers).
We move preventive services, healthcare management programs, diagnostic testing (imaging and laboratory services) and other medical treatments and minor procedures to ambulatory centers while hospitals handle only major surgeries, intensive care, severe trauma management, and treatment for other acute, severe, complicated conditions.
Many patients around the world are becoming more empowered to make informed healthcare decisions due to to rising education and literacy levels, the growing use of digital devices and increased internet access.
New healthcare technologies are a key component of the move toward outpatient care since they make it possible to establish strong integration among the various entities.
When creating a smart hospital, the design focus doesn’t end at the walls of the hospital or the virtual care user interface. Rather, ergonomic design of smart buildings and virtual services, including modular facilities, hardware, software and networks, is required to meet future demand, as new technologies, innovative new care models and different ways of working come into play. By integrating these new technologies into our design and framework as part of a wider interconnected ecosystem we can improve operational efficiency, the overall customer experience, as well as outcomes and costs.
