New Research Report: How IoT Technology Helps Create Tomorrow's Hospital Today

Over the last 18 months we’ve all seen, on a global scale, the challenges healthcare facility managers are facing as they work to maximize their buildings’ operational performance while also maintaining the quality of care and patient and staff safety.

The coronavirus pandemic did not cause these issues; it merely exacerbated the challenges healthcare facilities already faced. The good news? There are solutions available today to help address these challenges head-on.

Guidehouse Insights’ latest research report, Global Insights: IoT & the Future of Healthcare, highlights how IoT-enabled platforms and solutions can help facility managers create hyper-efficient, people-centric, resilient, and sustainable healthcare facilities of the future.

The research report, commissioned by Schneider Electric, includes real-world insights from 600 global healthcare facility executives into IoT investment priorities and provides a simple framework to help them introduce an IoT-based platform into their facility’s infrastructure.

What the IoT looks like in healthcare

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all about connectivity. With it, networks of internet-accessible devices are equipped with software and firmware that collects, stores, and transmits data to other connected devices to enable data-driven decision-making and automate manual and inefficient processes.

IoT-based building management platforms add value to existing intelligent building technologies by delivering new visibility into healthcare facility performance to improve operational efficiency and resiliency while advancing patient care and sustainability targets.

In their research report, Guidehouse Insights defines IoT devices as having:

• Two-way data communication enabling them to send and receive data.
• Embedded control and computation capabilities allow for advanced integration into other management, automation, or control systems.

The IoT offers facility-wide benefits

Improving energy efficiency is often the way IoT-enabled technologies make their entry into a healthcare facility’s buildings. And the advantages IoT-based platforms offer in this regard are significant.

According to both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, because hospitals are such energy-intensive buildings, every $1 saved on energy is equivalent to generating $20 in new revenue.

However, the benefits of IoT-enabled platforms go far beyond the bottom line. At a practical level, IoT-powered intelligent patient room technology can:

• Give patients better control over environmental preferences, such as lighting and temperature.
• Provide easier access to care information like upcoming consults, release dates, and provider teams.
• Help healthcare organizations create healing environments that are more responsive to both patients and staff.
   

IoT-based platforms also can help improve the resilience of healthcare facilities. The past year’s extreme weather events have underscored the importance of having healthcare facilities that can recover quickly from a natural disaster or other service-interrupting events. IoT-enabled asset management and predictive maintenance systems keep facilities personnel up to date on equipment conditions and can help troubleshoot problems to help ensure the 24/7 continuity patients depend upon.

Integrating this new technology into existing building energy management systems also can support an organization’s goals for improving sustainability. The growth of enterprise-level environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs across all industries, including healthcare, is driving demand for IoT solutions.

Guidehouse Insights found that 72% of the responding organizations that have set sustainability targets have incorporated IoT systems into their facilities in the past 12 months, compared to 1% of those that have not set such targets.

Meeting budget challenges

Of course, today’s competitive healthcare market can make investments in new technologies a difficult decision for administrators, and Guidehouse Insights’ Research Report proves that point.

Concerns regarding potential savings and the resulting return on the investment were the top two barriers respondents said they faced in decisions to installing IoT solutions in their facilities. However, it’s important to emphasize the potential an open, integrated IoT platform can offer beyond operational savings to transform patient and staff experience within the facility, boost resilience, and address ESG directives.

Taking a holistic approach that considers both where a facility is currently and where it should be in the future is key to plans for any successful IoT implementation. This process would include the full range of efficiency savings, patient and staff experience improvements, resiliency requirements, and ESG goals that facility executives hope to address.

Schneider Electric’s solutions

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Healthcare is a future-ready IoT platform designed to enable people-centric, hyper-efficient, resilient, and sustainable healthcare facilities of the future. To learn more about how to prepare your healthcare facility, download Guidehouse Insights’ full report to access an actionable IoT implementation framework to help healthcare facility managers and executives benchmark their readiness and accelerate their journey: https://go.schneider-electric.com/AU_202110_HC-IoT-HVC-Web-Gating-Program_MF-LP.html?source=Content&sDetail=HC-IoT-HVC-Web-Gating-Program_AU

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