A VISION FOR THE FUTURE

How smart healthcare technology can help improve operational results, patient outcomes

By Jerry Folsom

The Canadian healthcare system continues to face an array of challenges: ongoing pressures from the COVID19 pandemic; burnout among providers and healthcare workers; staffing shortages; and an aging, sicker patient population. Recent healthcare reforms, such as the consolidation of health regions, may help but experts are calling for even deeper, more systemic changes.

Technological innovation continues to play a major role in every industry, with the healthcare sector positioned to benefit tremendously from improvements. For instance, consider the impact of virtual healthcare and its rapid adoption through the pandemic. Likewise, data analytics, artificial intelligence and other emerging smart healthcare technologies can not only help Canada’s health system overcome the challenges it faces today but also prepare it for the future.

Understanding The Smart Hospital

A smart hospital is much more than a collection of digital technologies and apps. It’s a complete healing environment in which all healthcare technologies work together to help reduce operational costs and improve efficiencies, while also having a positive impact on patients, staff and the health authority. Smart hospitals adopt a people-centric philosophy as the backbone for integrating infrastructure, software, devices and functions to improve cost structures, ease operational complexity, prevent infection, speed recovery, respond to emergencies faster, and create a healing and comfortable environment.

In the end, a smart hospital effectively becomes part of the healthcare delivery team.

Improving Operational Results

Because the federal government has com- mitted to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, initiatives that improve energy efficiency, conserve resources and enhance sustainability efforts have come into sharper focus within the healthcare sector. Smart hospital technologies can help achieve these goals while helping to reduce operational costs, too.

For example, operating rooms are energy-intensive due to their high concentration of devices and equipment; continuous need for ventilation, precise temperature controls and lighting; and demand for cleaning, disinfection and sanitization. Smart surgical suites, enabled by an integrated building management system (BMS), can help address these concerns dynamically and automatically. Using data from the surgical scheduling system, the smart surgical suite adapts its environment so it’s ready to go before a procedure but remains in an unoc- cupied mode when not in use. This approach conserves energy and reduces the workload of clinical and facilities staff, who would otherwise need to manually adjust temperature, ventilation, lighting and other settings for a successful surgery.

The smart hospital can also depend on Health Level Seven data to achieve energy savings. Admit/discharge/transfer feeds inform the BMS when specific patient rooms are occupied. When unoccupied, rooms can shift to energy saving mode to reduce costs and resource consumption, without the need for added room sensors. Rooms can then adjust their settings, so all patients arrive to a comfortable space.

Additionally, smart hospitals can enable operational improvements through predictive maintenance insights and strategies, enhanced reliability and uptime for critical spaces, centralized command and control of fire and security systems, asset tracking, and optimized space management and utilization. For assets like HVAC equipment, predictive maintenance and prevention of downtime can also have a great impact on safety and wellness.

Real-time location services (RTLS) can monitor and alert clinical staff on the whereabouts of medical equipment and patients, which can help ensure patients are in the right rooms with the right staff and equipment at the right time. Leveraging technologies like RTLS and associated software to improve patient throughput in existing facilities could potentially reduce or slow the need for additional facilities.

Healthcare organizations can also leverage data to improve surgical room operations, which can affect expenses, patient experiences and staff satisfaction. Predictive analytics can provide advanced notice of infrastructure issues. In this way, teams can make repairs during off-peak hours or pre-emptively adjust surgery schedules and room assignments as needed. In either case, the hospital avoids unnecessary and costly disruptions and downtime.

Enhancing Experiences

From the moment someone arrives at a hospital, the building affects their entire experience. It can be difficult to navigate a healthcare facility under the best of circumstances but when an older building has multiple additions constructed over decades, it can become even more complicated.

A smart hospital, however, can provide real-time graphical directions and wayfinding on a patient’s mobile device. In this way, clinical teams can also gain visibility into the patient’s estimated time of arrival, so their schedules can be adjusted accordingly. If a patient is going to be late, this visibility allows clinical teams to work with other patients who have already arrived, minimizing the ripple effect of delays.

Creating smart patient rooms can improve patient and staff experiences, too. A smart patient room allows patients to control the comfort of their environment, letting them adjust the temperature, lighting and window blinds from their bed. Whether using voice-activated room controls like a virtual assistant, tablet or nurse call pillow speaker, bedside controls may also reduce the incidence of patient falls; by allowing patients to control their room environment from their bed, they are less likely to get out of it to adjust a wall thermostat or turn off lights.

In this way, the smart patient room alleviates burden on clinical staff. Instead of devoting time to changing room settings, staff can focus on what matters most: caring for patients.

Optimal Conditions For Healing

Studies show a patient’s environment significantly contributes to better and faster healing. Temperature and ventilation settings are key but so, too, is lighting and how it can affect a patient’s circadian rhythm.

A smart patient room incorporates circadian lighting strategies, which follow people’s — and the sun’s — natural rhythms. Brighter, whiter daytime lighting can support increased alertness during waking hours. As evening approaches, the lighting automatically and gradually adjusts intensity and colour to achieve optimal conditions for sleepiness and, consequently, recovery, without disrupting patients and staff.

An estimated 220,000 Canadians contract a hospital-associated infection (HAI) every year, resulting in about 8,000 deaths. Smart healthcare technologies can help here, as well. Indoor air quality monitors can optimize a facility’s fresh air intake strategy to mitigate some risk of HAIs. Likewise, room sensors to monitor and manage density in common areas provide actionable data that support real estate planning and reconfiguration.

Smart glass, which can appear transparent or frosted, has emerged in recent years as another way healthcare facilities can precisely control the patient environment. Facilities equipped with smart glass can use their BMS to control how the glass appears, providing privacy for exam and patient rooms and transparency for observation and security concerns. Moreover, smart glass can reduce or even eliminate the need for fabric curtains and dividers, which can be contaminated with infectious agents.

Planning For The Future

Transforming the vision for the future of healthcare into a reality entails careful planning, early engagement with technology and engineering experts, and an understanding of cybersecurity requirements. Because a smart healthcare facility means multiple building and healthcare systems must work together seamlessly, supported by the right infrastructure and integrated BMS, early engagement is especially important.

Many people think smart hospitals are expensive. But the reality is smart hospitals offer the opportunity to reduce construction and operational costs. In some cases, multiple hardware and software systems can be eliminated from designs and replaced with multi-function controllers and software, saving costly yet necessary integration steps. A good way to think of this is to consider how many devices a smartphone has replaced.

For existing locations, a variety of services can integrate, extract and analyze data from infrastructure components, often without replacing hardware, for actionable insights. For example, healthcare organizations can aggregate data from the BMS and electronic health record. Precise reporting of surgical room conditions during each procedure can then verify adherence to standards and regulatory requirements.

For a new facility, a technology partner supports the project’s development by aligning building systems with the goals of the health authority, leveraging smart hospital technologies, consolidating systems and architecture, and selecting the right materials and components. These advantages can deliver construction and operational cost savings while also avoiding duplicate systems and equipment.