Hospitals Improving Patient Safety by Bridging the Gap Between IT and Biomedical Departments

Frost & Sullivan's virtual think tank reveals how this improvement will also foster better security of the patient monitoring network

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Frost & Sullivan

May 13, 2019, 10:04 ET

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical device networks are larger, more complicated and more mission-critical today than they have ever been. Hospitals in Canada are supporting these networks with ongoing interdepartmental communication, clear departmental responsibilities, and a regular preventive maintenance schedule. In addition, more hospitals are layering digital monitoring solutions on top of their overall network maintenance strategy.

Frost & Sullivan's virtual think tank, Best Practices for Managing Patient Monitoring Networks Across the IT and Biomedical Departments, aims to understand what best practices successful hospitals were following to keep these critical pieces of infrastructure functional and focused on supporting patient care.

To download the Virtual Think Tank Executive Summary, please visit: http://frost.ly/3f7.

Key research findings include:

Nearly 80% of panelists focused on medical device maintenance in addition to other responsibilities.
All respondents agreed that maintaining medical device uptime and connectivity was important, with 80% indicating that uptime and connectivity were extremely important.
60% of respondents experienced medical device network glitches or failures on a once-a-month basis.
Half of respondents reported the biomedical department was responsible for maintaining medical device assets and that the patient monitoring networks fell under a shared responsibility with clinical IT departments.
Panelists all agreed that network connectivity is a critical measure of their facilities' IT infrastructure and that it was necessary for patient care.
Panelists cited power outages as a common reason for device networks crashing.
Although 60% of respondents did not currently have systems or protocols in place to proactively monitor their medical device networks, all respondents agreed that proactive monitoring would help their biomed teams improve network uptime.
Using tools like these can help pinpoint network failures, thereby saving trouble-shooting time and delivering faster problem resolutions.

"The growing demand for hospital-based medical device connectivity solutions is expected to result in remarkable changes across the continuum of care," explained Charlie Whelan, Transformational Health Vice President of Consulting. "Breaking down silos between the biomedical and IT departments is a critical step in reducing the risk of patient monitoring network outages."

The following industry thought leaders participated as panelists of this virtual think tank: Martin Poulin, Director at Biomed Island Health; Peter Lawes, Manager of Clinical Engineering and Telecom Services at St. Boniface Hospital; Ron Sturge, Executive Director of Clinical Engineering Service at New Brunswick; Marianne Beardshall, Manager of The Heart Rhythm Program at Southlake Regional Health Center; and Lou Kowatch, Senior Director of Healthcare Digital Service at GE Healthcare.

About Frost & Sullivan
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About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare is the $19.8 billion healthcare business of GE (NYSE: GE). As a leading provider of medical imaging, monitoring, biomanufacturing, and cell and gene therapy technologies, GE Healthcare enables precision health in diagnostics, therapeutics and monitoring through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services. With over 100 years of experience in the healthcare industry and more than 50,000 employees globally, the company helps improve outcomes more efficiently for patients, healthcare providers, researchers and life sciences companies around the world. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and The Pulse for latest news, or visit our website https://corporate.gehealthcare.com/ for more information.