Month: July 2018

Internet of Things in Health: Internet of the Patient?

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What are the forecasts for the Internet of Things in the health sector? To get an idea, we pointed out two aspects: on the one hand, the use of the term IoHT – Internet of Healthcare Things, in its acronym in English – has already been extended to refer to the practical utilities of the IoT in health. On the other hand, healthcare is already the second activity associated with interconnected devices, behind manufacturing, distribution, and logistics. Can we then talk about the Patient’s Internet?

The Internet of Things, allied to the healthcare professional

Many devices and objects, now interconnected, can provide a significant amount of data and medical information – documentation and medical records – in real time, data stored in the cloud for later analysis and management by healthcare equipment planners that offer significant savings of space and costs. A set of information that helps the health professional to manage and monitor the status of patients and, also, makes it possible to speed up emergency actions since the doctor will count with a click of the patient’s clinical history and needs.

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In this sense, the IoT is already being used for the remote monitoring of patients through the wearable devices to know in real time different health variables and to be able to act in case of emergency. Also, this remote control allows establishing medical visits when the device detects that consultation is necessary, thus saving time and costs to patients and improving recovery rates. On the other hand, it encourages the self-care of the sick, capable of managing and controlling their health from their home.

However, it is useless to have large amounts of information if you do not carry out an analysis and interpretation of the information obtained. The IoT opens the doors to an analysis of  behaviors and habits on a larger scale and allows to cross the information with other epidemiological variables, for the implementation of public health policies that help improve the quality of care based on the analyzes and predictions obtained.

The sensors, more than a trend

The use and implementation of sensors go far beyond the control of healthy variables by the patient since there are numerous tools to be applied within the health center, with the objective of monitoring medical and health equipment and helping the patient in their recovery -like the smart beds. It allows you to adjust positions depending on the movements of patient- or for remote control of parameters such as temperature or noise of hospital rooms, to help ensure compliance at all times the highest quality of healthcare service. The role of sensors in health management will become increasingly important.

The dares of the Internet of Things in health

Some challenges of this technology implementation involve the initial investment for the integration of the data in the different systems of the health centers, ensuring interchangeability, as well as the implementation of supervision systems by hospital equipment planners that provide continued preventive maintenance. On the other hand, training health professionals on the management of innovative devices and software on the network, and providing maximum security and privacy of patient data should also be a priority to incorporate the health sector to these latest technological advances.

How Should a Strategic Hospital Plan Be?

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The impact of the current economic crisis strongly affected own health. Failure to pay state securities (through public agreements), increase in medical glosses, delays in payments by health plan operators: the environment of uncertainty in the sector is evidence of the importance of having hospital consultancy services. It is possible to prepare the institution for the future, identifying potential obstacles and making the necessary adaptations to neutralize threats and take advantage of opportunities.

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The problem is that most of the managers of the segment do not know how efficient planning should be, or make wrong decisions, cut investments where they cannot, do not maintain excellent communication with employees about the mission of the company. Then, thinking about those difficulties, we elaborated the information of today to clarify the functioning of that process.

What is strategic hospital planning?

Strategic planning is a corporate process created to facilitate the reach of the desired situation in the future, through studies to diagnose critical factors that may impede the growth of the company. The aim is to establish a path that must be followed in a long-term systemic manner, designed to strengthen the organization with the ability to interact better with external factors.

In this way, it is possible to adapt to any scenario reducing uncertainties. It is straightforward: hospital planners and medical equipment consultants are a compass oriented towards the future, serving to communicate to employees, patients and investors its mission (the company’s differential in the market), vision (what the company wants to be in the future). ) and its values (principles that direct the decisions of the organization).

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How is this process structured?

Hospital strategic planning is usually structured in stages: Vital diagnosis

At that stage, we must seek to answer the question: in what position is my hospital about the market? And to facilitate the analysis, the phase can be divided into:

  • Identification of the vision
  • Identification of the values
  • Internal and external analysis
  • Competition analysis

The mission of the institution

At that time, you already know where you want your hospital to arrive, but you may not know where you are now. Here you can define the reason for the existence of the institution, a stage that can be divided as follows:

  • Definition of the mission of the hospital: What is the difference between your hospital and the others?
  • Establishment of current and potential purposes: description of the action segments in which the hospital acts or intends to operate.
  • Elaboration and debate of scenarios: design of situations that can describe what will happen with the institution in the future- created using physical techniques (projections of socioeconomic data, census data, for example) or subjective (opinions of hospital space planners in the sector).
  • Development of the strategic position: formulation of the most appropriate strategies for the hospital to achieve its purposes, since respecting the results of the SWOT analysis previously carried out.
  • Definition of macro strategy and macro policies: guidelines or general actions that the institution must follow to achieve its objectives.

Quantitative and prescriptive instruments

The time has come to transform the mission into objectives, challenges, goals, and indicators so that everything that must be done to make the hospital a reference becomes concrete.

Hospital Planning Will No Longer Be Based Mainly on the Number of Beds

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The first question that health authorities often ask about hospitals is, “How many beds do you have?” Traditionally, this indicator has been one of the most iconic units of measurement of health planning and one of the most emblematic resources in the psychology of patients.

However, the hospital bed will no longer be such a significant point of reference. This is because of the convergence of factors that intensify and have generated changes in the organization of health systems and the role of hospitals within them.

Hospitals face new challenges

The primary factor in the midst of these new trends is the demographic and epidemiological transition – older populations and a higher burden of chronic diseases and multiple pathologist. This generates a growing demand for services in a general context of secured financing. Also, the pressure on health spending intensifies due to the high inflation rates in the sector, the new high-cost technologies, and the inefficiencies of the systems historically oriented to pay attention to acute conditions in the face of the wave of synchronicity.

The patients themselves have also transformed the way hospital consultancy services in India work. They are increasingly better informed about health, are more proactive in the management of their conditions and have higher expectations about the quality of services. Likewise, information and communication technologies allow new ways of interaction between health personnel and patients, as well as the spatial configuration of services.

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To survive, adaptation is mandatory

There are several ways in which hospitals are responding to this new reality, among which the following stand out:

– Articulation of hospitals in integrated networks of diversified services. Advances in medical technology associated with outpatient surgery and hospital consultancy services (in oncology, for example), the predominance of the chronic patient, and the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) make it possible to transfer services outside the hospital, through tel monitoring recovery and home hospitalization, remote consultations, and medicine.

Also, complementary health services are being configured, such as long-term intermediate care for subacute patients, which seek to reduce the risk of acquired infections in hospitals and use beds efficiently. To adequately care for chronic patients with multiple pathologist, greater continuity of care, multidisciplinary, integration with social health services and strengthened primary care are required.

– Specialization of the offer. The traditional model of the general hospital with a portfolio of similar services has proved unviable in many countries. Therefore, it is increasingly common to find hospitals with a particular focus to increase patient volumes to optimize quality and reduce unit costs. This phenomenon, together with the departure of non-acute patients to secondary health services, is resulting in hospitals that concentrate a higher proportion of complex cases and require more sophisticated medical-surgical interventions.

Consequently, in some countries, there is a reduction in the number of beds for acute patients and also a shorter average stay, associated with the perfection of medical technologies.

– New collaboration and contracting relationships. Hospitals traditionally operated entirely autonomously; however, it is more efficient to structure some independent services that can serve multiple providers. Diagnostic imaging and laboratory, for example, were the first to use this model, maximizing the productivity of technology and human resources of high cost and limited, which could hardly be absorbed by a single entity. Likewise, different providers are integrating clinical services through the creation of unique teams, the exchange or rotation of professionals and residents, the adoption of standard protocols, the joint accounting of production, and the use of ICT.