CIO OPINION of advanced technologies – our research told us that around three quarters of healthcare IT leaders had started to implement trials or applications in areas such as Artificial Intelligence ( AI ), Internet of Things ( IoT ) and Machine Learning . Despite this , it ’ s fair to say that the pandemic has spurred a profound acceleration that ’ s thrown the sector into a digital revolution .
Implementing all these new technologies is a lot to deal with , but when we team it with the fact that healthcare was already one of the sectors struggling most with the data that digital technologies produce , sirens start sounding . In 2020 , a third ( 33 %) of IT leaders in healthcare said there was too much data for their systems to handle and that they could not process the data they collected quickly enough to act on it ( 32 %). Imagine what that must look like now .
Digital slowdown threat
So , why does all this matter ? The harsh reality is that if healthcare organisations are unable to efficiently manage the data they are generating , the entire sector will face a major digital slowdown . The impact of this is exponential .
Think about it , technology has been at the core of some of the most important interventions to combat the virus – from how we tracked its spread , to how we studied it . In addition , we must remember that digital healthcare has no boundaries : it lives at home , in the office , on the phones and wearables that we carry around with us . The volumes of data generated by medical devices , apps and real-time monitoring systems are unimaginably vast .
This is exciting and concerning at the same time ; the possibilities that could be brought about from further Digital Transformation are endless , but its momentum is under threat . IT leaders in healthcare feel this more than anyone and understand the consequences of a data mismanagement ; at best , it could threaten their competitive advantage and frustrate employees and patients , but at worse , it could make their organisations vulnerable to cyberattacks and grinding to a standstill .
Reaching the Edge
To avoid digital slowdown , healthcare organisations must establish a network that effectively gets a handle on all this data : it needs to be processed efficiently , analysed intelligently and above all , stored securely . As with most things , this becomes more manageable when we break it down into three core steps :
Step 1 : Process data efficiently
In order to process data efficiently – companies must follow it to the Edge of the network , capturing it in real-time at its source versus transferring it back to a centralised hub . Real-time decisions are often critical in healthcare , particularly hospitals and even a submillisecond delay can undermine a system ’ s efficiency . Furthermore , real-time data also enables cost and energy reductions by utilising intelligent tools such as sensors that automatically switch entire systems on or off when needed .
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