The idea of smart home or smart office is already well known and shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is great to see that this idea is spreading around also in our healthcare systems. Today I am going to introduce you to smart hospital.
What is a smart hospital?
In the simplest terms, in a smart hospital each piece of equipment, bed, medical equipment has a special tag attached to it, which transmits information to the system about where this particular item happens to be. Also, hospital employees can wear a special tag, so you can know where a doctor or nurse is in the hospital.
Sounds like the marauders’ map from Harry Potter? It definitely does! And it is not magic but technology that allows us to introduce it to our hospitals. You might ask ‘“why?” In general this information can improve the overall operation of the hospital.
Why do we need smart hospitals?
Transformation of hospitals and intriducing smart technology can solve many issues that cause loss of time, money and disorganization.
First of all smart implementing smart hospital solutions helps medical equipment management. Information on where the medical equipment is currently located will not only speed up finding it and transferring it to the place where it is needed, but can also increase the efficiency of its use.
Imagine a situation when a hospital has 2 pieces of a given equipment, one is currently occupied and a doctor is waiting for it to be released not knowing that the other is unused. It is also a huge time saver.
Special tags can also be attached to hospital beds. In this case, the most important information that can be used will be the number and location of vacant hospital beds in each department. This will increase the speed of admission of new patients and can eliminate some bottlenecks hospital can fight with.
As for personnel – thanks to special tags, we can have information about where a particular employee is at any given time. This helps not only in a situation when a particular doctor or nurse is needed, but also in an emergency situation for that particular person.
This is because you can combine this tag with a panic button and quickly respond to attacks or dangerous situations. It is well known that a hospital is a place where various emotions, including negative ones, germinate in patients and their families.
Smart hospital solutions can also make it easier to get around the hospital. Hospital wayfinding is a challenge every bigger building is facing. Both patients and doctors spend a lot of time finding their way to a particular office or department.
Hospital staff often instruct patients on how to get to a particular place, wasting their precious time. Placing special beacons in the building makes it possible to generate a map and instructions on how to get to a particular place on the phone.
Does smart hospital make sense already?
Definitely! Smart hospital is not a song of the future. The benefits that flow from these modern solutions are enormous and hopefully soon they will be an everyday occurrence in the world around us.
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