As healthcare systems become mobile first, Stuart Waine explains why the sheer magnitude of the UK’s healthcare system is its undoing when it comes ensuring reliable mobile coverage in many of its facilities
Healthcare organisations have always been under pressure to maximise patient outcomes with ever decreasing budgets. Throughout the pandemic their staff were on the front line, treating patients and administering vaccinations at record-breaking speeds. However, this has come at a cost, with many hospitals and outpatient services left in a precarious position. Healthcare service costs are soaring, patient numbers are growing, staff shortages have been compounded, with some teams at burnout levels, departments are being forced to consolidate/shut down, the combined effect of which is huge patient backlogs.
The impact will be felt for years and it’s vital that healthcare organisations find new ways of operating to prevent further delays in routine surgery and procedures. Overhauling critical infrastructures and mitigating mobile dead spots to pave the way for IoT and automation could be a way forward.
In the wake of the global health crisis, ensured mobile connectivity in healthcare has progressed from being a “nice to have” to a “need to have” for basic operability. Something else that has become increasingly apparent is just how reliant larger facilities are on laborious processes for many of their day-to-day activities. Not only are they time-consuming, the sector is facing chronic staff shortages and does not have the capacity to carry out manual processes that could be easily automated. Nowhere are these pressures being felt more than in busy A&E departments. Patients are increasingly obliged to wait in ambulances for hours before being admitted, sometimes with irreversible consequences. The mobilisation of first response teams or the running of CCTV control rooms, for example, could easily be automated through IoT.
Routine processes can easily be automated
Hospitals are also hugely dependent on manual processes for routine tasks such as ascertaining how many beds are occupied at any given time or tracking down life-saving ICU equipment/senior clinicians. Moreover, donor centres, organ banks, research labs etc are at the mercy of favourable traffic conditions for their urgent deliveries. Again, such heavy dependency on labour intensive processes incurs huge expense that could be easily avoided with automation.
The concept of deploying medical robots and other IoT technologies has historically been inconceivable in many hospitals due to the perceived high costs and disruption involved versus the perceived gains. However, thanks to the universal rollout of 5G networks combined with IoT coming to fruition, huge progress has been made in digitising consultations and empowering doctors to leverage IoT for treatment prognoses and drug regimes.
However, whilst it is widely accepted that IoT offers the potential to transform healthcare as we know it, a range of network infrastructure and mobile dead spot challenges need to be addressed first or any IoT investment will be doomed to failure from day one. Even though healthcare organisations the world over have undergone facility-wide Wi-Fi projects to improve communications, many still struggle to ensure reliable mobile connectivity.
80% of medical professionals face mobile connectivity challenges
In the UK, circa 85% of doctors require smartphones/tablets to access medication details, with around 75% using these devices to access critical information. In paradox more than 80% of medical professionals face poor mobile signal challenges when on shift. Apart from rendering their on-duty smartphones unfit for purpose, the lack of a reliable mobile phone signal directly impacts the quality of treatments/prognoses and ultimately the number of lives.
With many hospitals already renowned for being mobile dead spots, combined with growing digital dependency, frustrations among medical teams have only been magnified. Then there is the mobile coverage situation from the patient’s perspective to consider. The total number of calls made by them on a daily basis has increased by a quarter over the last three years, putting struggling comms networks under even more strain.
So, what are the root causes of poor mobile coverage in healthcare? Building layouts and raw materials like iron, steel, glass, reinforced concrete, insulation products etc. are the main culprits. The average hospital comprises sprawling campuses, complex structures, kilometres of internal corridors, not to mention stairwells, research labs, clinical theatres etc which are often located below street level and void of a mobile phone signal.
A hybrid DAS system is needed
Until recently the only way to overcome the mobile connectivity dilemma has been through expensive operator-connected DAS deployments. But with budgets being cut and energy bills soaring, many facilities do not have sufficient funds to implement an enterprise-grade communications system. They need a “DAS like” system but without the expense or the complexities involved. They also need third-party support in selecting alternative options, the most viable of which is a hybrid DAS solution based on mobile repeater technology.
Now that the rules pertaining to the use of mobile repeaters have been relaxed, providing the levels of coverage needed is no longer the arduous task it once was. Moreover, mobile repeaters are carrier-agnostic, which means that they will improve mobile coverage levels for all users regardless of the provider. They are quick and easy to deploy because their configuration is based on the findings of a mobile site survey, avoiding the need for a cabling overhaul. Installs can be completed in just a few days and the outcome will be better communications between patients and staff and a network infrastructure to support IoT and automation.
The need for assured mobile connectivity in hospitals and the wider healthcare sector has never been greater and 5G rollouts are driving the need further. Securing full network coverage does not have to be an arduous, complex task.
The author is Stuart Waine, director at Spry Fox Networks.
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