With an increasing dependency on technology amidst cautious budgets, it's no surprise that Emerson Network Power's recent survey of hospital IT managers, facility managers, data center managers, and engineers cited budget concerns, power requirements, and system availability as top priorities. The mission-critical nature of healthcare IT has forced those who own technology and/or facility operations to do more with less-all while maintaining continuous access to applications like electronic medical records (EMRs) and digital imaging.
In addition to uncovering the top-of-mind issues for those manning operations inside the hospital, the survey also revealed some staggering surprises. For instance, more than one-half of patient rooms are not supported by any uninterruptible power source (UPS). Additionally, just 28% of operating rooms have all emergency power receptacles serviced through a UPS. This lack of protection makes point-of-care technologies vulnerable to downtime, impacting the patients directly.
Dependence on technology
Respondents indicated when they upgraded power and cooling infrastructure in conjunction with technology deployments inside the hospital. According to the survey, more than one-half of hospitals needed to upgrade their IT power and cooling infrastructure when implementing new technologies like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), indicating a correlation between the importance of power and cooling infrastructure and the reliance on critical IT systems.
The desire to improve patient care, as well as factors such as federal government initiatives and physician attraction and retention strategies, continue to drive the deployment of new technologies-including wireless IT, PACS, VoIP and EMRs-throughout the hospital.
Although healthcare often is behind other industries in adopting networked technologies, hospitals have moved quickly to deploy IP telephony and wireless LANs to save money and more effectively provide connectivity in older buildings. EMR implementation has helped to make workflows more efficient, improve the quality of patient care, and reduce costs. The use of VoIP aligns with the trend to unify and streamline communications, and the use of PACS offers faster access to diagnostic information, reduces the need for film and film storage, virtually eliminates the problem of lost films, and increases radiologist and physician satisfaction and productivity.
